Have You Forgiven God? – by Greg Albrecht
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts.”—Isaiah 55:8-9
A few years ago I officiated at a funeral service for someone I had
never known. I interviewed people who had known the deceased, and in the
process I found out some dark and disturbing things.
What do you say at a funeral when you can’t find anyone who ever knew
the person who has anything good to say about them? What can you say at
a memorial service when surviving friends and relatives are having a
difficult time forgiving God for allowing the deceased to have been the
nasty, intolerant, self-centered person they apparently were?
Preparing for the funeral and preaching the service took me directly
to God. The path I took to God on this occasion is a well traveled road
in my life—I call it “Forgiveness Avenue.” As my life in Christ
continues, I find myself walking down this road regularly, for it takes
me in a Christ-centered direction. It’s my experience that thinking
about and pondering forgiveness will almost always lead us in the right
spiritual direction.