Early on you may need to teach your disciple how to forgive God. I am not suggesting that God has ever done anything wrong to anyone. I understand the absurdity of a man forgiving God, but what I am suggesting is that your disciple may be bitter at the Lord, though unfairly, just as he would be at any person.

Man holds captive those who have wronged him in a debtor’s prison in his heart because he believes they “owe” him something.  He will even say, “They owe me an apology.”  He convinces himself that it would be “unjust” to forgive them for what they have done to him, or his family, or his friend.

As futile as it is for a human to try to hold God hostage in his tiny heart and tiny mind he still attempts it. He seeks revenge against the Lord so he withdraws relationally from him.  It maybe never going to church again, or to behave in a way that he believes is especially defiant in order to get the Lord’s attention, even though it is self-destructive. Not too different from what Harry Emerson Fosdick has said, “Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.”