“Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Luke 13:1-5
Whenever I hear someone ask, “Why me?” in response to some tragedy they have experienced, I think of this passage in Luke and picture in my mind a modern version of it: a reporter lands by helicopter on a Caribbean island that has just been devastated by a hurricane. As he makes his way through the rubble of destroyed homes, downed power lines, upended cars and dead bodies, he spies one man standing alone at the end of a boulder-strewn street.
“Sir! Sir!” he shouts breathlessly as he runs toward him. “Are there any other survivors? Is anyone else still alive?”
“Yes, there are a few,” he says solemnly, looking the reporter straight in the eye. “But we’ve survived only by the grace of God,” he adds.
Being the modern, enlightened man that he is, the reporter scoffs, “The grace of God? Why would a good God randomly kill people like this in the first place?”
The man raises his hand and gestures to the devastation around him. “Because this is what we all deserve, including us survivors. That is why it is only by the grace of God that any of us are still here.”
Can you imagine the uproar if someone actually said this on national television news? “You mean this hurricane…this tornado…this earthquake…this civil war…this plague…this famine, we deserve this?”
Jesus’ answer is, “Yes. Yes you do.”
“How cruel! How inhumane!” we say. “Why would a good God allow this to happen to me?”
No, how holy, how righteous, how just is God to give us a warning of his coming judgment in eternity.
In actual fact, the only truly appropriate time to ask the question, “Why me?” isn’t when some tragedy happens to us, but when God spares us from tragedy. Why does God show us such mercy? Why does a holy and righteous God allow anyone one more breath of life anyway?
As I look back on my life, I see God showing me mercy after mercy and blessing after blessing.
But why me?
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
For the past sixteen years New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
_______________________________________________________________
Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
_______________________________________________________________
