Why Me, Lord?

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.