I was shocked to hear someone say they had to forgive God after their son's untimely death.

What is wrong with this statement? Do you think it ever crossed Job's mind to forgive God?

Forgiveness is always associated with a committed transgression, something God is not capable of.

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Thelma Bontrager

Hi BonnieJane,

You raise in interesting question. I, personally, think it is a figure of speech to a certain extent. But perhaps that should not be allowed. A person with that attitude should be encouraged to see they are adding error to error by thinking in that way.

Perhaps they have to repent, first, for ever blaming God, but then also, to forgive themselves for adding to the barrier between Him and them.

I have to say though, that God is always glad when a person's resolve to keep Him out of their life, begins to weaken, and He Himself can minister to them. He is the one to pick the moment to hold them to account for their accusations against Him, if that is or ever becomes His priority.

quote>>>>I was shocked to hear someone say they had to forgive God after their son's untimely death

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D.Miller

I understand the above statement. Only someone who has been so deeply hurt in life while being a christian can make such a statement. Statements like this come from saints who have been deeply hurt by some of lifes storms and no one is truely fit to comment on that persons mental/emotional or spiritual condition unless they themselves have walked that lonely road, the american indian has a proverb that goes something like this, "judge no man until you have walked one (season)in his moccsins".
Great men like CS Lewis have gone through periods in thier lives where they have been mad or lacked understanding of God's dealings and had to go through certain processes to regain things like trust, love faith etc... in the Lord

BTW Job did say Though HE slay me yet will I trust HIM, did you hear there? He just falsely accused God, but he concluded something very profound, yet will I trust Him. Personally I believe this outcome was a long process in Job's life and in his thinking, alot of water passed over the bridge before he could make this statement.
Some things just take alot of time, probably best to just pray for this percious, hurt mother. Jesus said a smoking flax He will not put out nor a bruised reed will He break. God's not a bit put out by ourlack of anything.
Trangression in Job's case was that he felt God had trespassed (committed a transgression) unjustly into his life circumstances, the same this mother did.

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D.Miller

I see your point. The difference between Job a and his wife is vivid. Thanks

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Thelma Bontrager

I think some of the answers here have touched on some good points. C.S.Lewis wrote "The problem with pain," after his wife died. Yet, because of his negative feelings towards God, he originally wrote that book under a different name.

For me personally, I have known the pain of watching my children suffer. My first son died, my second son was 60% burned, third degree burns and almost died and my third son was born with Down Syndrome and had to endure painful surgeries. So, this subject is in no way academic to me. While I have never personally blamed God for anything, I can understand someone who could go down that path. The searing pain of the loss of a child or to see your child suffer agonizing pain and the helplessness that is felt is beyond description. You can hear my testimony by clicking on Frank McEleny May 31st am at ....
http://www.fbcbarnsdall.com/audio.htm

While many may be shocked to hear someone talk about forgiving God, God is not shocked about any part of the human condition. If someone is on a journey in life, the Lord knows the ulitamte destination for His children. At any given moment in time their theology or their doctrine will not be perfect, their understanding will be lacking, but the gracious Lord understands it all. There are times to talk to people and there are times to be quiet. Remember Job's friends? The best part of their relationship with Job was their inital silence, when they were just there for their friend. It was when they started to sort Job out and figure out his "problem," that they got into a mess and were all wrong. Most of what they said had a lot of wisdom, but it simply did not apply to Job's situation. So, as someone with a Pastor's heart, I would be very loath to teach anyone anything at a moment in their lives when they had just lost a child. God Himself will work with His children, and He will do it with amazing patience and gentleness and grace, oh the grace. He will lead us and guide us into all truth, we can trust that He is the author and the finisher of our faith. We are all at different places in our walk, and God knows. Someone will be stronger in one area of their lives than another. So while one man can suffer the loss of a child and say truthfully "It is well with my soul," another may take five years to get to that point.

Can I just point out that God the Father knows well the agony of watching a child suffer and die. We will never know, not in this life or the one to come, what God the Father suffered as Jesus cried out "My God My God why has thou forsaken me?" When I had to hold my son down , while assisting a nurse, in a bath full of salt water so that his burned body would not get an infection which would definately kill him, it all but killed me. A two year old who could not possibly understand, screamed and screamed and looked into my eyes saying and they seemed to say "why are you doing this to me, you are supposed to be protecting me." If I, a mere human being, can feel so much pain, so much agony that my hair started to fall out, can one even beging to imagine what our Heavenly Father felt? It is one thing to be in that situation and be helpless, but The Father could have stopped Calvary. And why did He not? "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son.......) Now, I got a vision of that, God shared a wee bit of that with me, and it was overwhelming. And you see, was not that the thing with Job too? When God asks Him where were you when............? Job gets a revelation of the vastness of God.

One day, this lady will have further revelation of God. He will reveal HImself to her in deeper ways, He does to all of His children who continue to follow Him despite their circustances and pain. She may never know why her child died, but if she is faithful to continue to be open and learn more of the deeper things of God, then she will be changed. I think we must always remember that "It is God who works in us."..........Frank

Hello BonnieJane,

I want to apologise for an assumption I made, which dohzman's reply brought to my attention, namely, it didn't cross my mind that the person to whom you refer may have lost their son only recently, or as, as Frank's post points up, that their son might have been still a child.

I have met many people over the years who at the very mention of God, accuse Him of unlove, for the reason that someone they lost, or, someone they know, lost a person dear to them. They hold this to their hearts as if it is a valid reason for discounting Him altogether from their lives as one who loves [i]them[/i], not seeming to realise the futility of their reasoning. For God could take them at any time, also, and there would be nothing they could do about that either. Yet still they are locked in human reasoning and imagination, sometimes allowing themselves to embrace conscious atheism - as if that solves their grief. Thus, I am familiar with the concept of 'forgiving God', as it may be the first step out of such a mindset - even though it is an incorrect view of God, which causes them to think in those terms.

brother Frank said

Amen writes........

The same is true in our walk with God. Sometimes He allows us to hit a rock with such force, that He gets our full attention in a way that He never had it before. No matter how we react to the 'rock' which He has apparently strewn in our path, it is there to teach us something about Him as much as about ourselves, and if we don't deal with it in a God-glorifying way, it will remain in our path until we figure out what's wrong with our attitude, that it ever appeared in the first place.This is the God of love at work, and the raw love of God, for us."

Amen to your reply. And I agree with the above quote and the truth of it is evident. The only thing that I would could council is, at the time of the loss of a child, is not always a teaching moment. As the days,weeks , months go by, sometimes there is only raw pain, and until the person finds comfort in the arms of God, then they remain apart. apart from God, apart from a spouse, apart from the world, they are lost in their pain. In all of this I am assuming that we are talking about a genuine Christian,and, I agree with Alive to God that there is a danger that bitterness and anger sets in and they are permenently "seperated," from God because of it. For me"forgiving God," would, for some and perhaps the person that we are talking about, be a first step in a deeper revelation of God and life and the fact that there, in many cases, is simply no good answer reason or purpose for what happened and just leave it at that. There is no indication that Job knew the circumstances behind his circumstances after he was restored........Frank

I've uttered those words when at my lowest hell, it's not spoken from believers casually. It's not even saying that God did something wrong, and no one is pointing the finger at God. It's difficult to explain. It comes out of heart that is filled with agony and the LORD is not offended. I can't explain it properly.