God loves us very much, that is why He shows what prevents us from being close to Him, being friends with Him, and what prevents Him from leading us through life as He always dreamed of. This is reproof of the loving heart. These are individual gifts from God. How many people who have experienced some tragedy, are caught up in it and do not move forward with God.

Sometimes God does not show the reason why this or that tragedy occurred, by testing our confidence and ability to follow Him. But we demand an answer. So many brilliant and gifted ministers were trapped in such a situation. How many more believers have not even started to actually serve properly because of such situations (the passing away of loved ones or people whom you prayed for, some setbacks in the ministry, etc)? Perhaps this tragedy did not happen in your life as a believer but it still holds you.

It is good for us to forgive God these days. Why does this matter? We are bounding so much with a grudge against God that it does not allow Him to move freely in our lives. We are ready to live as "half-orphans" somewhere aside: "I am on the outside. I am not worthy of being close to You... ” But this is false humility. We are all unworthy. It was Him, Who cleansed us and made us worthy through the death and resurrection of His Son.

Do you remember the Canaanite woman from Matthew 15:27? In her case, there was true humility and but in our case there is wrong. This is pride and offense. We just need to forgive Him! God cannot "break into" our soul and life against our will. We close ourselves off from Him with our false humility, saying: "If You want to help me and You love me, then come Yourself and get me out of the trap where I am sitting meekly."

Another cause of such false humility is fear. We do not trust God. We expect a catch. We wait in fear when He will fail us, then something bad will happen to us again “according to His will”... Yes, we do not dare to say that, but at heart, we expect that as soon as we open ourselves to God - bang! - something bad happens!

But friends, when we hold a grudge against God the pain we receive because of it not only poisons our soul but it also penetrates our body. Physical pain is a sign of inner pain.

After the prayer of forgiveness and repentance, it is important to keep insisting that you already forgave God and you have forgiven by Him and that there is no such poison of offense and unforgiveness between you and Him. It is important to give thanks to Him for that for a while and to be strengthened in this.

It often happens that we do not suffer because of real sins, but because of annoying mistakes and failures. An unresolved offense, pain, perplexity are painful conditions towards God. This results in our boldness and belief that God will act, is going away. Therefore, it is important for us to forgive both God and ourselves.

If we have already repented of any sins, then God has forgiven us. We must not forget where God got us out, but, it is extremely important not to walk under the pressure of our past! God works miracles when we give Him access to the root of our pain and forgive Him!

© Boris Grisenko, winter prayer retreat 2019