What I wanted most in life was to have a wife who would be God’s will for me. But God didn’t give me the person [or, woman] that I chose, and I had to watch her be with another guy….
Some time after that, I started living in sin with a woman whom I felt obligated to marry because she got pregnant. But less than a year later, I was unfaithful to her with another woman who is now also expecting a child….
I don’t know what I have become. What kills me the most is my conscience. Deep inside I am resentful and say to God: “In all the years that I’ve served you I haven’t drunk alcohol or done drugs, I always went to church, and yet I failed at everything…. I never had a single success!”
I don’t know what to do now. I still resent God, even though my soul and my spirit cry out for His presence.
Dear Friend,
There is a war going on within you. You know that God is calling you through your conscience, but you are holding on to your resentment until you can get what you want from Him. Or maybe you think that, at the very least, He should apologize to you for not giving you what you think you deserve. After all, you did so much for Him! What did He ever do for you?
Your resentful feelings are caused by faulty thinking. You think that you know what is best for your life, and that God does not know or does not care. You think that you deserve God’s favor because you followed Him for a number of years. The way you look at it, God is like a vending machine: you put in the price, and then you expect to get what you paid for.
Anyone who follows God with the expectation of getting everything that they want is going to be sorely disappointed, as you are now. God, our Heavenly Father and the Ruler of the universe, is not willing to give up His perfect plan for our lives just so that we can get what we think we deserve.
Have you ever seen a child throwing a tantrum in the grocery store because his parent won’t buy the candy that he wants? Doesn’t the parent want to make the child happy? If the child almost always obeys his parent, such as looking both ways before crossing the street, doesn’t he deserve to get everything he wants?
You have the choice to stay angry and bitter, or to change your faulty thinking. Think instead about a God who loves you so much that He is willing to put up with your tantrums in order to save you from something or someone who would not be good for you. Think of a God who loves you so much that He let His very own Son, Jesus Christ, be crucified to pay for your sins, even though Christ Himself had never sinned. Did Christ get what He deserved?
We wish you the best,
Linda