Mad At God Part 3

Mad At God Part 3

As long as I can remember, I wanted to serve God. It may have been a religious thing but my heart has always been to serve him. Looking back, I see that this was the root of my issue with God. I wanted to serve him, be a good person and follow after him. In fact, my daily (and only) prayer was "God, make me a man after your own heart."

In my preparation to be a priest, the emphasis was on knowing "about God"; developing an intellectual relationship with him. This training equipped me to serve God on one level but not enter into a full relationship with him. I found myself serving God by serving a religious institution. No wonder I was struggling with my life style. No wonder I was feeling lost and forgotten, daily hungering for a relationship I knew only in my mind!

When I could no longer live this way, I cried out to God with an expectation that he would answer immediately. When there was no answer, I felt abandoned, took offense and ran. I felt betrayed by a God I did not know. My theology did not allow me to access the heart of the Father, only the cold, unbending doctrines of a distant deity.

It would be many years later that, by the grace of God, I could begin to comprehend the purpose of this journey. Now I can see that I did receive the answer to my desperate prayer. An answer that was played out over thirty years. The Father honored my desire to be "a man after his heart." But more importantly, he was after my heart! For that to happen, there needed to be the breaking of a man.

Not knowing what God was doing, I took matters in my own hands. Angry and frustrated I turned my back on God, church and religion. I found the love of my life, Judy. We married and raised four children. We ran a ski lodge, pastored in another church denomination, and later planted a church. Yet, there was an aching in my heart. My anger at God was subdued but not abated.

Change came in my life when I met Jesus. Up to this point, Jesus was lost somewhere between my theological doctrine and my anger at God. To see Jesus as a real person and a gift from the Father completely changed my focus and my purpose. I began to see that Jesus was the one who would show me how to be "a man after God's own heart."

But that is another story.