Confessions of A Broken Heart: God I Hate You..
Yesterday, I wrote a letter to myself. Towards the end of the letter I wrote, “Release your doubt. It is interfering with you trusting in God.” As I looked at the words “trusting in God” anger started to rise in me. The thought of trusting Him again angered me. Just a few weeks ago, I called myself trusting God, and I felt extremely humiliated because of it. During that time, I attended a Women’s conference. One of the sessions a woman was ministering, and she said, “There are three women here with one of their legs shorter than the other and as a result you have back problems. Come up here, God is going to heal you.”
I have not responded to an altar call for healing in years because people tend to blame your faith when it is not manifested. However, no one had been specific as her. I thought it would be wise to make my way up there. As I was at the altar, I said, “God this would be an awesome moment to heal me. There are a thousand people here, and it would be a great moment for you to get the Glory. I’m here in faith, and I trust in you to heal me.” The minister gets to me, and she has me sit in a chair. She pulls both of my legs up, and you can see that one of my feet and legs are severely smaller and shorter than the other. She gets on her knees and begins to pray and pull at my leg. After a minute or so of praying, she tells me, “I have been healed because at first she couldn’t feel a part of my foot that she could feel now.” I politely told her, “nothing has changed.” She tried to tell me again, “Oh yes I saw it.” I told her, “I have been believing God for this for over 31 years. No one wants it to be true more than I do, but nothing happened.” She then tells me, “well keep believing” and walks off to the next person. According to everyone else that went up for prayer they were healed; but I had to take the walk of shame back to my seat. I sat there feeling like the worst practical joke ever was played on me.
God already knew where I was in my faith. He knew I came there needing to be restored, and that moment made everything in that conference null and void to me. I had to fight the urge to run and not come back for the rest of the conference. Everyone went on as nothing happened. My roommate for the conference tried to console me, but I was too hurt to cry about it. I decided to retreat to the theologian in me and convince myself everything was okay. I went to the back of the church, and I danced as an act of faith that shame would not consume me. I completed the conference, and I headed back home feeling worse than when I arrived.
Yesterday, the suggestion of trusting God pissed me off! Trust him for what? Lately, trusting Him has resulted in disappointment. Trusting him has resulted in great loss for me. As I thought of all the times I went up for prayer; believed for something; or was required to give something up these words flowed from my lips, “God I hate you!” I started to confess “God I hate you created me this way and permitted the deformities I have. I hate that you made me the daughter of a man that was fine abandoning his children. I hate that you allowed me to be born into a family plagued with poverty and procrastination. I hate that I have lived righteous for you and have nothing to show for it. I hate that you took every man that loved me away from me (my grandfather, Pastor James, and Dean Goldsby)” I went on and on about who, what, and why I hated God.
I could not stop myself. It was in my heart for years. I held resentment towards God about things that happened when I was four and five years of age. I have been trying to love and serve a God that in my inner most being, I did not trust. I gave my life to him at 7. I was filled with the Holy Ghost at 14 and started preaching. I went to college and obtained a degree in Pastoral Care Ministries. I spent three years in a Ministers in Training course and became a licensed minister at 25. Now at the age of 32, I discover that God has always loved me, but I have never truly trusted Him. It is hard to trust someone when you harbor hate and resentment towards them. I had to sit in the reality of my relationship with God. I had to accept that it was rotting at its core. It was in this moment that I asked myself, “Do I really want to serve God?”
My relationship with God has been extremely self-centered and self-serving. Most of it has been on account of bad teaching on faith. Not receiving something I believed I could "name and claim" caused a lot of unspoken resentment in my heart towards God. Hearing people say, “all you must do is have “faith,” and you’ll be healed” caused much disappointment each time I walked away from the altar the same. Believing that “the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous” and battling poverty made being righteous comical to me. All my life faith has been taught to me as something I must possess to get what I want from God. However, scripture says the opposite. “Faith is something I must possess to get God’s will accomplished (Hebrews 11). I have spent the last 25 years of my life subconsciously pursuing God’s hand and not his heart.
Yesterday, the Holy Spirit tended to the garden of my heart, and he uprooted the weeds that were choking out my true faith in God. By the end of my prayer time, I found myself weeping, repenting, and committing my life to God’s definition of faith. Now the cry of my heart is truly God how may I serve you? I have spent 25 years trying to get God to line up with my will for my life. I at least owe him 25 years of lining my life up with His will. LOL This truth pill was extremely difficult to swallow, but I am grateful for it. It is only a reminder that God loves me, and that he is fully invested in completing the good work he began in me (Philippians 1:6).
To anyone who can relate to my story, I only have one thing to suggest to you, and that is: BE HONEST WITH GOD! He already knows what is in your heart, and harboring resentment, anger, and disappointment only makes you bitter. That bitterness begins to choke the life out of your relationship with Him, and it causes your perception to be distorted. My prayer is that you won't go as long as I did holding on to bad theology, past hurts, and resentment. God can handle anything you have to say. Once you are finished "telling Him off," His love will be there to correct you and fill the empty spaces with truth. May today begin a renewed relationship with you and our wonderful Creator! Thanks for reading!
-Charity Israel
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