Breaking the “Betrayal Barrier”

Recently I spent three hours with a christian doctor.  After talking at length about my life, he made several suggestions.  One of those suggestions was to read several of R.T. Kendall’s books. Yesterday one of my daughters saw one of those books lying on a table next to my reading chair in my living room and commented that I should go to her church’s website and watch one of the past videos where R.T. spoke.  So, this morning I did just that and what he said hit me right in the heart.

The message title was “ Totally Forgiving God” and the following are excerpts from Kendall’s message as he told about how he and his father both had faith that his mother, after suffering a stroke at the age of 43, was going to be healed and she was not.

“How do you totally forgive God when you feel like He has betrayed you?  Have you ever considered what a privilege it is to practice having faith in God even when He has not answered your prayers the way that you wanted Him to?

1.  Count your blessings.  Do you not have something to be thankful for?

2.  Be honest.  Tell God your complaints.  He can take it!  He’s not offended.  Psalms 142:2 says to pour out your complaints before God.

3.  Fight self-pity and a feeling of entitlement.

4.  Choose to believe that there’s a purpose in what’s going on because one day you will see that there was a purpose and you’ll be so glad you made that choice.  You’ll see that it was exactly what was right for you.

Can you break the betrayal barrier?”

Here is the link to that message if you would like to hear it in its entirety.  Be sure to click on the little TV on this webpage to view the video:   http://newvisionlife.com/sermons/sermon-archives/2012-sermon-archives/rtkendall-2012/

I thought I had completely gotten over my feelings of being betrayed by God, but I found myself weeping throughout this entire message.  This was my prayer at the end:

This plan hurts, Lord, but I’m choosing to trust You anyway.  And, I’m going to continue to run this race and look forward to that day when I look on Your face and hear you say to me, “WELL DONE, Candy!!!  WELL DONE!!!”