Why Me, Lord?
Romans 8: 28 – 31 June 9, 2002
You know it’s going to be a bad day when you wake up in the hospital all broken & bruised and your insurance agent tells you that your accident policy covers falling of the roof… but not hitting the ground…
Or, when you call Suicide Prevention and they put you on hold… Your twin sister forgot your birthday… Your income tax check bounces… You put both contact lens in the same eye…
We’ve all had bad days… One lady described her nerve-wracking ordeal like this: “It was like being trapped for 4 hours in a stuck elevator with a group of Jehovah’s Witnesses…” That’s got to be pretty bad…
A fortune-teller studied the hand of a young man & told him, “You will be poor & very unhappy until you are 37-years old…” The young man said, “Well after that, what will happen? Will I be rich & happy?” The fortune-teller said, “No, you’ll still be poor, but you’ll be used to it by then…”
This morning, I want us to look at the question, “Why Me, Lord?” Why does God allow so much evil… Why do bad things happen… Why is there so much hurt & pain in the world and in our lives?
Last Sunday, during my morning prayer, I mentioned the family that had lost their 2-year old daughter in a tragic accident… and I said, “Lord, we don’t understand these things, but your Word tells us that, “all things work for the good of those that love you…”
That prayer kind of haunted me this week… I was thinking… The lost of a 2-year old daughter is one of the most tragic things that can happen to a family – and yet I said, “We don’t understand it, but we know that “all things work for the good of those that love the Lord…”
That’s God’s Word… I referenced & quoted God’s Word in my prayer, but how can that be… How can something so tragic, something so sad, something so painful… How can that possibly work for the good, how can any good come out of this?
Having said that, I thought it would be good for us to look at God’s promise this morning…
Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people… Why do innocent children die? Why do thousands of people starve to death? Why do tornados come & destroy beautiful homes and communities? Why do 6,000 people lose their lives in the World Trade Center? Why is there disease? Why do people have to suffer? Why is there so much pain in the world?
Well, I have an answer for you… This is a really thought-out deep answer so listen closely, I don’t want you to miss this… I DON’T KNOW!
I don’t know why God allows so much pain & suffering… I told you I read Dr. James Dobson’s book, “When God Doesn’t Make Sense,” and I couldn’t wait to hear his answer… and finally after reading 11 chapters, Dr. Dobson gives his readers his answer… His answer is the same as mine, “I Don’t Know…”
Friends, we don’t know why God allows bad things to happen to good people, we don’t have that answer, only God has that answer… but we do have God’s promise… It’s found in His Word… and His Word says, “all things work for the good for those that love the Lord…”
That’s God’s Word – and we have to believe God’s Word… Therefore, we can’t dwell on the bad things; the pain, the suffering, the loss, the disease… Why should we? We don’t have the answers… We can understand it… We can’t explain it… So why should we walk around dwelling on the bad things, with our heads down low, saying, “Why me, Lord? Why me?
Friends, we are called to live our lives on the promises of God, not the sufferings of the world… God’s Word says that “all things work for the good for those that love the Lord…” and some of us have learned to live our lives based on that promise…
But, I must point out that that’s just part of the verse… If we are to believe that verse and to accept our sufferings based on that verse, we have to accept the rest of the verse, all of God’s Word… because the first part can’t work without the second part…
The only way that “all things can work for the good for those who love the Lord” is if we are “called according to His purpose…”
That’s the key! We have to be “called according to His purpose…” And what is God’s purpose for His people?
We have to look at verse 29 for the answer… for it says, “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son…”
So what is God’s purpose? It’s for you & me to be “conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus…” It’s for each of us to become Christ-like… to take on the image of Christ… To live a life that is Holy, to be loving & compassionate, to be forgiving, to become totally committed to the “will of God,” to be bound to the things of heaven, and separated from the things of this world…
To be Christ-like is to be focused on eternal things, things that are not of this world…
The pain & suffering, the evil, the disease, the shootings, the stabbings, the tragic accidents, the lost of life, the destruction of homes & communities… These are all things of this world… these are NOT eternal things…
That’s why, “all things work together for good for those who love the Lord AND who are called according to His purpose…”
And His purpose is for us to be conformed to the image of His Son… To become more Christ-like…
When we become Christ-like, we begin to focus on heavenly things… For in heaven, there is no evil… there is no pain, there is no suffering… there is no disease… No more tears… No more suffering… (Amen!)
The hard part is, even when we are conformed into the image of Christ, we will still have to go through the pain & suffering of this life… For, did Christ live a life without suffering? Being the Son of God didn’t exempt Him from all the pain & suffering, did it? No! In fact, Jesus Christ suffered more than any of us will ever have to suffer…
His suffering & death on the Cross, is the greatest example of our lesson this morning… I can assure you that His followers, His mother, His disciples could NOT see how in the world any good could come from His death on the Cross… How could this act of violence, this murderous act, work for the good… Well, 3-days later it was revealed to them…
And “Thanks Be to God,” 2,000-years later, each of us can see how God used such a tragic death for the good… Because Christ suffered & died on the Cross – You and I have been called to God’s purpose… We have been justified… We have been glorified… We have been saved through the blood of Christ… The “evil” death of Christ has become our “good” salvation…
Friends, we too will suffer… We live in a world of suffering, a world of pain, a world of broken hearts… For Christ did not come to do away with suffering; He did not come to explain it; He only came to fill it with His presence…
Theodore Steinway, president of Steinway & Sons pianos, once said, “In one of our concert grand pianos, 243 taut strings exert a pull of 40,000 pounds on an iron frame… It is proof that out of great tension may come great harmony…”
As long as we live on this earth, there will be tension, there will be pain & suffering, there will be broken hearts…
If your heart has been broken… take comfort in knowing that God uses broken things… It takes broken soil to produce a crop… broken clouds to give rain… broken grain to give bread… broken bread to give strength…
And if that’s not enough comfort for you, take comfort in knowing that God also mends broken hearts… He takes the bad & makes it good… He takes the sad & makes it joy… He takes the hurt & makes it peace… He takes “all things and works them together for good for those that love the Lord, and are called according to His purpose…”
We don’t understand it… but we have to believe it…
ILLUS: Charles Swindoll once wrote a story about building character… He said, in the northeastern United States codfish are a big commercial business… and the demand for fresh codfish is a big market – people in the northeast ship codfish all over the world… but there’s a problem with shipping codfish…
At first, the fisherman were freezing the fish for shipment, but the freeze took away much of the flavor… so they experimented with shipping them live in a tank of seawater – but this proved to be even worse… Not only was it more expensive to ship, but the codfish still lost their flavor and in addition, became soft & mushy…
Finally, some creative person solved the problem… The codfish were placed in a tank of water along with their natural enemy – the catfish… From the time the codfish left the East Coast until it arrived at it’s destination, those catfish chased the cod all over the tank… and when the cod arrived at the market, they were as fresh as when they were caught… There was no lost of flavor, nor was the texture affected… If anything, they were better than before…
Friends, each one of us is in a tank of particular & inescapable circumstances… It’s painful enough just to stay in the tank, but in addition to our situation, there are God-appointed “catfish” to bring us just enough tension to keep us alive, alert, fresh, and growing… It’s all a part of God’s purpose to shape our character, to conform us into the image of His Son… to make us more Christ-like… We need to understand why our tanks are filled with catfish…
ILLUS: A gardener took great pride in his yard, but one year it grew full of dandelions… He tried everything to get rid of them, but nothing worked… He didn’t know what else to do so he wrote the Dept. of Agriculture explaining what all he had done… and asked, “What shall I try next?” They wrote back, “Try getting use to them…”
I don’t like that answer, that’s a worldly answer… When it comes to the pain & suffering of life, when it comes to the evil of this world, we don’t have to get use to it… We have a better answer… God says, “Trust Me…”
When we suffer in this life, when evil comes our way, when things go bad and we find ourselves saying, “Why Me, Lord?,” that’s when we need to put our trust in God… and we can do that when we become called to God’s purpose… when we become conformed to the image of His Son… And we can do it in the knowledge of God’s Word and in the promise of God’s Word, knowing that no matter what happens in this world, that “all things work for the good for those that love the Lord, AND are called according to His purpose…”
As we struggle in this life, may we become conformed to the image of Jesus the Son… to be Christ-like – focused NOT upon this world… but upon things yet to come… Life Eternal…
For truly, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
This is God’s Word for this Sunday. May God add His blessing to His Holy Word.
