Why me, God? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this cry spoken out loud in the midst of struggle and tragedy. I can’t tell you how many times, when I was younger, I said it to myself. And I can’t tell you how many times it was written in the Bible, especially the Psalms. Connecting loss with God’s anger, disappointment, or attempts to get us to live better is as old as humanity. It is, I think, at the core of who we are made to be, this need to know why things happen. The story of Adam and Eve is centered around Adam’s need to understand how to choose between right and wrong – how to answer the why of the unknown. The answer we are often given is that God is teaching us a lesson or punishing us. Why me, God? Why me?
Some of us ask the same question when good things happen, but too often the answer we give ourselves is that we are so good – we deserve it. Prosperity preaching tells us that God gives us stuff because we are blessed or favored, which also means that those who don’t “get stuff” aren’t. The Augustinian quote, “There but for the grace of God go I” points to the same concept. We may not think this when we say it, but it tells the listener that we haven’t experienced terrible things because God’s grace is on us and not them, those poor, unfortunate souls. We may not be trying to be cruel, but that is how it comes across.
It takes a lot of deep discernment to not ask this question. To recognize that God isn’t picking on us comes from a better understanding Scripture and accepting that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, as Jesus put it (Mt. 5: 45). It has been a central part of my preaching ministry, the idea that we all suffer; this idea is essential, I think, for a healthy spirituality. The idea that faithful people suffer is in the Bible from beginning to end. It is acknowledged by Jesus and the Apostle Paul many times over. It is, in fact, one of the things we all have in common. The lesson is that God loves us no matter what happens to us. God is with us through the joy and the pain, and we need to be with each other as well. Share your struggles and hold each other close. We are in the same storm, but God is there too.
Prayer – Holy God, You are with us, loving us and supporting us and urging us on. Guide us through the storms of life, we pray. Amen.
Today’s art is “Jesus Calms the Storm” by Bernard Allen.