What if God doesn't guide you to forgiveness?

It's frustrating when our Christian faith instructs us to pursue big goals, like forgiving our enemies, without providing practical steps to achieve them. 

This is like trying to locate a destination on a map without directions. 

Today's episode touches on:

• wanting a clear instruction manual for prayer that gets results 

• agreeing that God calls us to forgive our enemies but this is much easier said than done

• questioning our options when God doesn't give us step-by-step directions 

Transcript

Welcome And The Real Question

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to today's episode of Guilt Free Faith. I am your host, Frank Legons.

Why Faith Lacks Clear Steps

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Wouldn't it be nice to have some instructions on how to do this stuff? Like you need a healing, you know, pray, pray to God for healing. Okay, well, I'm praying to God for healing. Like, I haven't got a healing. So what do I gotta do next? Do I gotta light a candle? Do I say the Lord's prayer? Do I come against Satan or the sickness or do I cast it out? Sometimes I feel goofy even asking these questions, but I know that other people have to be asking these questions. Just be honest, right? Sometimes we need something more than here's this ideal thing that it would be great if you did. Oh, well, how do you get there? Well, I don't know exactly. I mean, I just know that you kind of pray and then God will work it out in his time and he has a plan. And I could cite you a number of verses on that. Is that enough? Are you ever frustrated there's not an instruction manual? Something that tells you exactly what you need to do to get the result you want.

Agreeing God Wants Forgiveness

SPEAKER_00 1:04

The result that God would want, the result that Jesus would want, following on with this idea of forgiveness. Let's start by agreeing that God would want us to forgive our enemies. We're supposed to forgive our enemies. In the Old Testament, that's a different story on how God deals with his enemies, right? But okay, New Testament, we forgive our enemies. And yes, I want to do that. I want to do that as a Christian, I want to do that as a human being, I want to do that as somebody who also needs the forgiveness from others. I'm not oblivious to the fact that some people hurt or disappoint me, but I'm also doing that to other people. Nobody's exempt. We're all fallen humans and inflicting pain intentionally or not on one another. So at least when our blood isn't up and we're not foaming at the mouth mad, you get a sense somewhere inside you that it would be nice if you could forgive them. It would be the right thing. It would even make you feel better. It would free you from the bondage of hatred. But how do you get there?

The Map And GPS Metaphor

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Here's my metaphor to you in terms of the question I'm asking today. If you are here, you know, here's the map. This is your life, and forgiveness is over here. X marks a spot. Now, really, what you want is a GPS turn-by-turn instruction, right? Go down Main Street, take a left, go three blocks, take a right, and this place is on your left. That's what you want, right? That's what you plug into your phone when you want to get somewhere. But let's say you're not given that. And let's say you're unfamiliar with all this territory, you're driving around in the new city, but you forgot your cell phone and you don't have a GPS, and you still need to get to this spot. So, what are you gonna do? You're gonna try all types of stuff. You're gonna wander around, you're gonna follow the sun in the east, you're gonna have people with the gas station, right? You're gonna try to buy a map, you're probably gonna get there somehow, but it's very unlikely to be this ideal path. So, continuing with this metaphor, if I was saying, hey, you need to be here at three o'clock on Friday, and you have no map, it's dark out, you don't know how to get here, and you have no no instruction from anybody, no hints, no tips of being tough on you to give you like this deadline in this mysterious location in a place you've never been to and don't know how to get

From Rage To Forgiveness In Real Life

SPEAKER_00 3:35

to. So the metaphor I'm setting up for you is somebody just killed your loved one, or somebody just ran you off the road. Here you are, here, you're mad, you're angry, you're hurt. Over here is forgiveness. And okay, God, I know you want me to get to forgiveness, and I want to get to forgiveness. And my cardiologist tells me that people tend to have heart attacks that don't forgive people or that are bound up in anger. Okay, cool. I want to get there too. How do I get there? Oh, well, I'm not telling you how to get there, basically. I mean, you might get lucky and stumble upon that at some time or another. But just think, if I put a blindfold on you and I tell you forgiveness is way over here, way across town, you could be stumbling around for years trying to get from hate to forgiveness. It's just obvious, right? But the question that drives to the fore is why then does God do that? And what does he expect you to do in that case?

Why Would God Leave It Vague?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

We will talk more about this next time. Let me know what you're thinking in the comments.