Forgiving* God. Healing Deep Hurt.

In episode 9, Tiara discusses forgiving* God for some of the hard things we’ve gone through. And how this act can be an integral part of healing those deep wounds. 

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Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 9 of Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast. As you can tell I'm so excited that we are at episode 9. I don't know how long the excitement of every episode is going to last but right now I am thrilled to have made it to episode 9. Episode 9, the title is "Forgiving God" and there is an asterisk beside the word forgiving. So let's get into it.

So I looked up the word forgive and it means to stop feeling angry or resentful towards someone for an offense, flaw, or mistake. So when I talk about forgiving God, I put an asterisk because God is blameless, right? He makes no mistakes. He's never sinned a day in his life, but the stop feeling angry or resentful towards part really resonated with me and it's something that I feel like God revealed to me this morning through the book of Joshua. And I'm gonna be honest like I am entering my Bible study era right so I have been trying to have a listening ear when God tells me to do something or ask me to do something and so this morning he sent me to the book of Joshua and I didn't know what was in there. I just knew that my heart was heavy and so I started to read.

Now in Joshua, Moses has just passed away and Joshua is now the leader of all of these people, the Israelites, right? Now remember the Israelites have come from Egypt they were slaves they crossed the Red Sea with Moses and they're headed towards the Promised Land. But you know people started sinning, making idols, doing all these things, Moses got really mad.  Anyway, God punishes the people and basically the people who made it out of Egypt right it was their descendants who ended up making it to the Promised Land because they had been disobedient. God said that he was gonna wait until all of the people to die off who had sinned against him, had disbelief whatever the case may be.

That's just a little backstory. So Moses has passed away. Joshua is now the leader of these people. God has appointed Joshua as the leader and they're headed to a land called Jericho. They have different places that they want to overcome and forgive me y 'all I am I am not a Bible scholar yet I am a Bible scholar but I am a beginning Bible scholar so forgive me if I mix something up but I want to talk about the main point of what I got from this. So Joshua instructs the people to go to the land of Jericho and under God's instruction he tells them to march around the walls of Jericho because they've locked Jericho down because they are afraid of these Israelites. They know that they're coming to defeat them so they've locked the walls so they can't get in. So every day the people march around the walls of Jericho. On the seventh day, they march seven times and then they sound the trumpet the men scream, the walls fall down, the people go in Jericho is overtaken right?

Caveat… God told Joshua to tell the men who are fighting “when you get in there, I'm gonna give you this land, but when you get in there, all the gold all the silver anything that's really of value… do not keep it for yourself. I need you to present it as a sacrifice to me like set it to the side for me for my treasury.And there's one man who decides to hold on to some of the treasures so they defeat Jericho they're moving on to the next land to try to defeat and they send a couple thousand men out to defeat the next land. And they are attacked basically and caused to flee, so like they don't win this battle. 

Joshua was so confused he's like God why did you bring us all the way out here, why did you bring us all the way out here if we weren't going to win the battles that you said we were gonna win. And he was basically like somebody's being disobedient. Somebody is hiding things from me that I've asked them to give to me and until they give it to me You're never gonna win this battle.

When I say that hit me like a ton of bricks. Literally, thinking about the things that I have willingly given to God and the battles that he's helped me to win because I have willingly given over certain things. And then I think about the deeply personal, deeply vulnerable, the things that the thought of them makes my heart flutter. And how I've hid those things so deep in my heart and God has asked for them. He said that those things belong to him too and there you know I've willingly given up so many things and he's helped me to win battles but there's this one huge battle that I'm like God why can't I get over this why can't I why can't this get better. And through this passage,  he revealed to me it's because you're hiding things from me. I've asked you to give this over to me but you keep it for yourself so you're gonna continue to lose this battle until you dig deep. Literally, the man had hidden the treasures in the ground and he said the silver you got to dig deeper to get to the silver because I hid that below the rest of the stuff. And God revealed to me until you dig deep, until you go and get that stuff that I told you to give to me… you're gonna continue to lose this battle over and over. If you want to win, If you want to overcome this thing, you gotta give it to me. It's mine. I asked for it. Give it to me. What do we feel like we're gaining from holding on to this hurt or this pain?

It's just so touchy. It just hurts so much that we almost hold it dear to our hearts, or we bury it way down deep. That's what it is we bury it way down deep and we give God the things that are at the surface, but he wants what's in the ground. And so, after reading that I'm like, okay now what right? I want to be able to walk this out. I want to be able to win this battle that I feel like I've been fighting for so long. This one thing that I can't get past that I can't like there's so many things that he's helped me to improve and to make better when it comes to my mental health and different battles that I had but I  keep going back to this same struggle and He was like you gon give it to me?

So I paced around my room. This was literally like eight minutes ago. And I just started word vomiting. All the things in my heart that I felt, I didn't understand why he let it happen to me. If you love me You're my father You care for me and you can do anything. That's always been my biggest thing… God you can do anything. I believe in you so much that I know you are capable of anything. So why did you let these things happen to me? I do not understand. And those are the things that I've dug and dug and dug into the ground and I've hidden them deep.God, I know you want these things. I know you want these sacrifices. You want this stuff from me. You said, don't keep it for yourself, give it to me. And I've given you a lot of of it but that stuff that I dug down deep was the stuff that I I just don't… like you think you're harboring this resentment or this anger towards the person who did it or any responsible party that had to do with allowing this thing to happen to you. But when I really, really dug deep, it's God, you're the ruler of the universe. So yes, these are people and they make these decisions,but you allowed it to happen. And for that, I had to recognize that I was harboring unforgiveness…asterisk.

It's something that I'm still walking through and processing right because I know that God gives Man choice and he's not gonna make us do anything and that as a result of that, there is sin in the world. And things happen, bad things happen right,but I was saddened and holding on to this lack of understanding of why a God that loves me so much that can do anything in this world- like I know he loves me. I know he cares for me he has proven to me time and time again who he is so I'm not doubting who he is in fact I have so much faith that I just don't get why you would let that happen because you could have stopped it if you wanted to.  And maybe you know I'm not even gonna say maybe this is just me because I know there are other people who feel the same way and I thought it was one thing. And then as I started praying as I started releasing thing after thing after thing after thing came to my head and I'm like Lord Jesus. How can I really get to a place in true deep intimate relationship with you if I have so much unforgiveness? So much misunderstanding in my heart around these things that have happened to me that you allowed to happen.

And so when I talk about forgiving God, though he is blameless and he makes no mistakes, I can't see all the parts of my life. I can't see. He has a wide scope lens. He can see all of it. I can only see this tiny speck of my life and I know that this hurt me or this was harmful to me but I don't know who he wants me to be and what things I need to go through in order to become that person. So when I talk about forgiving God it's really about me giving those things back to him and really asking him like God if you want to explain it to me I would love to know. But, even if not here are the things that i've been harboring. Here are the things that I’ve dug into the ground and you're gonna have to dig a little bit deeper to get to this thing. I’m gonna give them to you and I don't know what happens next but what I'm believing is that God takes me to the next level.

I've been listening to this song “Refiner”- I want to be tried by fire purified I want to burn for you only for you. And I've read these memes that are like why would you ever sing that song? I want to be tried by fire purified? They talk about God's strongest warriors, like don't sign me up for the list this year because like I don't ever remember asking to be on the strongest warriors list. He gives his hardest battles to his strongest warriors. No thank you for being on that list, right? But this song just touches a part of me that as much as I've heard these things and like seeing these memes. I just keep singing, I keep coming back to it and the thought of, I wanna burn for you, like refine me, God.

Fire is a refiner right. I want to burn for you only for you so- whatever it is whatever fire I have to go through… and that sounds so scary and so like oh no thank you I don't want to go through those battles but it's like make me better please please. Because I've already gone through these things that have hurt me that I feel like have harmed me and have had what I feel like is a negative impact on my life. If I can go through something that is going to make me better and it's scary for it to come out of my mouth because i'm like please, I don't want to go through nothing. But the song it really sticks with me. I want to burn for you only for you. Take my heart, purify my mind. I want to burn for you only you. Girl, if you haven't listened to that song, I think it's an older song, but Maverick City music on their newer album they have a version that I really recommend that you listen to. 

But, I think that that's what this is about. It's a refining right and bringing up those old things that are hurtful and setting them in the fire, giving them to God so that he can make me better. That's something that I'm willing to do and I Just encourage you to really think through, what are those things that you're holding on to? What are those battles that you keep coming back to, no matter how much therapy, no matter how much processing that you keep coming back to and the sting just won't fade. That's the thing you haven't given up yet. And what if you just say, "God you can have this. I'm not going to have this.I'm not going I'm not going to hide from this, I'm not going to bring you everything but this. You can have this too. And that's what he wants from us.

So I pray that you're able to dig, dig, dig get that stuff but you gotta dig a little deeper than that because that's where you've hid that's where you've hid the really painful stuff. So, I pray that in time that God be with you as you uncover and give him those hurts and pains and as you walk through your own process of forgiving God.

God, I thank you right now for this day. Thank you for these people. Thank you for this time. Do what you do best Lord. Refine us. Make us new. Make us better. Thank you for who you are. And Jesus, amen, pray. Y 'all have a blessed week and stay hopeful.

Bye.