Son: How many times must I forgive?
Father: Have you sweated unto blood? Have you carried a cross that was not yours up a hill to a place you did not belong? Why do you ask me such things, when you know what was required for your forgiveness?
Son: But Father my heart is heavy and filled with pain.
Father: I know son, won’t you give those things to me instead of carrying them yourself?
Son: But Father if I do who will make sure justice is served?
Father: Am I not just? Am I not holy? There is yet another reason you cling to unforgiveness.
Son: I am mad that this wrong was brought down upon me and I want the person who wronged me to know what it is like. Father how could you let this happen to me, I trusted you!
Father: So you willingly forsake my ways so that you may hold onto unforgiveness and anger? Is it not enough that I walk with you and before you guarding you from the enemy? Do you not believe I will keep you until the end of this journey? You know I cannot let you stay like this, yet disobedience remains. Have you not seen with your own eyes the slave set free, the broken made whole, and the weak made strong? Did they change on their own, through their own strength or was it because they realized their own hopelessness and believed in me? If change does not come then you will miss all that I have planned for you.
Son: Don’t I have a right to be mad? I know you love me but I am just not ready to forgive.
Father: Son there are things you must learn and you will start with the trying of your faith not for punishment sake but so you may grow, yet it is not I that brings you to this place but your own choices but even still I will remain with you and though you must go through this it will be I who delivers you.
What is it about us that causes this self-reliance? There certainly have been enough times that things haven’t worked out as evidence that we don’t know the way but unfortunately there have been just enough times when things did work out that keeps us looking for something in ourselves that does not exist. For those who are determined to find the answer within themselves beware for your very lives hang in the balance. God is all about growing us through Christ Jesus and if we chose not to acknowledge Him in times of blessing then by our own choices we will face hardship but not all who go through hardship do so because of their own bad choices but all will change. Those who trust God grow and those who don’t will fall away, saying God is unfair, opening the possibility to do what they always wanted and follow their own blind eyes.
(2 Corinthians 1:9-10 NLT) In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. And He did rescue us from mortal danger, and He will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in Him, and He will continue to rescue us.
