Psalms 103:9: “He will not always content, neither will he keep his anger forever.”
“It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessons. But it is never gone.” Rose Kennedy
Think about this for a minute, God’s anger will not keep forever. Generally, a person gets angry when he or someone he loves is wounded by another person. God has a lot to be angry about. With six billion people in the world every second could produce millions of reasons for God to get angry. I mean if God really does get angry then he has to be angry all the time. I can picture the scene in heaven, God is just always besides Himself with anger over every little violation of his laws and commands by that Chaim Bentorah fellow. The angels are constantly trying to cool Him down, pat Him on the back, “Now, Now God you know that Chaim Bentorah fellow is just a doofus, you created him that way. Now come on have a little communion wine, let’s just kick back, yuk it up a little and you feel better. Don’t let that Chaim Bentorah fellow ruin your day.”
I know how our thinking goes, we think it without giving it any thought. God gets angry but like us after time He will cool down and begin to reason rationally and soon He is in a very forgiving mood. Really, is that the way God is? He just needs a chance to cool down, He will not remain angry for long, after all time heals all wounds. The problem with that is that time does not heal all wounds. How many of us have been wounded by something or someone decades ago. With time the pain is softened but the wound is still there. We all suffer PTSD to some degree. Suddenly, along comes someone who says something or does something and we explode and fall into a funk but we can’t figure out why until we think about it and realize it is not that person who caused you to explode, he or she only said or did something that opened that old wound.
Now I have heard about things like inner healings and dealing with it, but memories are memories. Does God remember all the things we did, all our sins but He forgives them and does not bring them up to throw in our face like we as humans do? I don’t know how God deals with our sins, I just know His forgiveness is complete. In Psalms 138:8 the Psalmist says the Lord will perfect that which concerns me. One rabbi said it was a picture of returning to the womb. While in the womb the mother loves the child in a way she will never be able to love again because once that child is born and become rebellious he will wound his mother’s heart, she will still love him, but there will always be that memory of the wound, that love is not perfect, it has a history. The word racham, God’s racham love is a love without a history, a love that is as pure as the day we were in the womb and had never wounded the heart of God.
So we go out and sin, it wounds God’s heart. How long does it take before his anger is cleared, a week, a month, years? God doesn’t live in time. It is cleared the moment we confess to Him. Actually, if we invite Him into our hearts He will forgive us before we even ask. The problem is that we need to confess that sin to bring about a healing within ourselves.
I remember as a child my father had a business partner and good friend named Al. He and Al would not only work together, they were best buds, they would go fishing together, hunting together, they would minister together at the mission and in church. One day Al cheated my father out of $5,000. Al withdrew from my father and my father did not get angry over the loss of the money, he was only hurt over the rift in their friendship. Before long Al and his wife left the state. A few years later he drove up to our house with his wife. His wife refused to get out of the car, but Al went to door by himself. My father came to the door and Al apologized promised to make it up to my father. My father told him: “Al, don’t worry about paying me back that is in the past, I forgave you right after it happened, I only wanted us to be friends. Do you think I would let a little thing like money come between our friendship?” It was not a little thing, that was a lot of money in those days and I know we could really have used that money, but to my father his friendship was more important than money. He was not angry but grieved over the rift in his friendship.
I’m sorry, but I believe God is much bigger than my dad and I never saw my father angry, just hurt and grieved. I guess we just reflect the Father image we have of God from the model of our own earthly fathers so I cannot picture my Father God as angry, especially an anger that must be quieted down over time.
But does not the verse say He will not keep his anger forever? It is right there in the Bible, anger. It is right there in my English Bible – anger. The thing is that word anger is not found in the Hebrew text. In fact translators only imply anger. It seems to fit the context and really as bad as we are we would expect God to be angry with us. They get the idea of anger from the word contend. Yet like I showed in my previous study, who says that riv needs to be rendered as contend or anger. Why not say He has a complaint? Still better how about the English word issue. That fits the word riv. My father had an issue with his friend, it was not anger, it was a complaint, but this issue was the broken friendship not the money.
God has an issue with us, a complaint. No where in this verse does it say His issue is with our sin. In fact if I read the context right I believe the issue He has with us is the rift in our relationship with Him. He has taken care of that sin long ago. He has done everything He could to open the way to a loving relationship with Him but our rebellion keeps closing that door. Like my father, I do not believe God is angry only hurt and saddened that He cannot enjoy our friendship, our love relationship with Him.
He has done all He could, it is now up to us we have to pull up into his driveway, hat in hand, go to the door and say: “I am so sorry, I will do whatever I need to make it up to you.” “Jesus will only answer the door and say, “You don’t owe me anything, I took care of the debt on a cross 2,100 years ago. Come on, let’s be friends.”
About seven years ago I had crawled under yon rock from whence I came. I was bitter towards God over the way things worked out in my life. My brother and sister in law dragged me out from under yon rock and invited me to teach a Hebrew class to some friends. One night I think I sort of expressed my bitterness to God and one of the students took me aside after the class, someone also going through what I went through. She spoke to me like a Dutch uncle (or aunt) and told me in no uncertain terms how I had offended God and I should just be lucky He doesn’t get as angry with me as I was with Him.
That evening as I sat alone in my car, everyone was gone and it was just God and I. I wept before God and told Him I was sorry and then I heard a voice. Only two times in my life do I recall hearing an audible voice from God. The voice simply said: “Can we be friends?” That began my journey to the heart of God which continues even after seven years. He has become more than just a friend, He has become my closest and most faithful companion. He is a friend that I know will never get angry with me. If I do stray He will only be hurt and grieved with a broken heart, a heart that I had wounded and might I never wound His heart again.
Recent Comments