Why me?
Why me, Lord? Not in a negative sense but in a very grateful sense. Why have I responded to your call when it seems so many others do not? I cannot believe there is something so peculiarly noble about me that sets me apart. If anything, I seem by nature to be the absolute opposite of what You call me to be. Perhaps that is part of the reason why me.
I wonder if the more accurate question is "why now?" I really don't know. I like to think my thoughts through before sharing them and feel strange that my very first blog entry is so undeveloped. But, then again, perhaps any discussion it provokes will help us all. I also wonder if, like most things, my perplexity isn't due to my perspective being too limited (expecting too much out of this life by forgetting it is only the laboratory to prepare us for the next) and my underestimating God (again!). Once my perspective is corrected, it may all make great sense and some scriptures over which I have puzzled may fall into place.
Why, on the one hand, does it seem God wishes all to be saved while, on the other hand, Jesus says, "wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it" (Matt 7:13 NIV). More particularly, it almost seems as if God intentionally does not save some.
Perhaps because of my network security background, it seems to me that salvation is a double gated system. A double gated system is used to exchange data between two companies in a way where neither one has unilateral control over what can pass between them; each must approve the access. Thus, the data on the way out of Company A destined for Company B must pass through the gate controlled by Company A and can only do so if Company A allows it. Once it has done so, it arrives at the gate controlled by Company B and can only pass through if Company B allows it.
So it is with salvation. We cannot initiate salvation on our own. To pass from death to life, we must clear two gates - one controlled by God and the other by us. It is clear that, even if God grants the invitation to His salvation, we can reject God's will in our lives. "But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves" (Luke 7:30 NIV).
Why does God seem to withhold salvation from some?
What is more puzzling is that God seems to sometimes keep His gate closed. We have I Tim 2:3-4, "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth," but at the same time are told "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him" in John 6:44. Even more ominously, notice the parable of the sower and the seed as related by Luke. There, not only does Jesus say in Luke 8:10 that He spoke in parables so that the people would hear but not understand, He goes on to say in verse 12 regarding the seed which fell on the path and was eaten by the birds "the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved." This is not the will of the devil triumphing over God but rather implies it is in conformance with God's will. This is very similar to the apostle Paul's statement, "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ" (II Cor 4:3-4 NASB). Satan would not have such power if God did not allow it.
Recall that Judas was doomed to destruction (John 17:12). This is consistent with the words of the apostle Peter: "But to those who do not believe, 'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,' and, 'A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.' They stumble because they disobey the message - which is also what they were destined for" (I Pet 2:7b-8 NIV).
The apostle Paul seems to struggle with this same issue when considering the unbelief of his own people. He hearkens to the selection of Jacob over Esau and the hardening of Pharaoh's heart and refers to some as objects of wrath prepared for destruction.
Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath - prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory
Reconciling the two
How do we reconcile these seemingly opposed thoughts? I'm beginning to believe the answer is found in two principles:
- It ain't over till it's over
- We do not live for ourselves - not even in our salvation life. It is not just about us and God. We are all individual threads in the wondrous fabric of salvation God, not we, is weaving.
The idea it is not over until it is over can be a source of great comfort. How many worry about loved ones who have not submitted themselves to God in this life? How many wonder about the countless souls who have not heard the gospel? Could it be all these references to those whose destiny is destruction, those to whom God seems to have kept the gate of salvation closed, are to the life they live up to the point of death? The hour of death has held great significance for the Church through the ages. Many of its greatest saints have emphasized praying for souls at the moment of death.
In the thirty-seventh article of her famous book, The Dialogue, Saint Catherine of Siena (for those uncomfortable with the Catholic use of the the word "saint" as a title, please rest assured that Catholics do believe all God's people are saints; they just happen to use the word in two distinct ways as we do with many words; a quick, one-minute explanation can be read or listened to here) relates God telling her there is one last opportunity to avail one's self of God's mercy at the moment of death.
I sometimes wonder if those of us who are quick to condemn those leading an unrighteous life in this life will be quite surprised in the next. Will we find ourselves inviting Jesus to dinner and forgetting to offer water for His feet while those who lived so awfully in this world are at His feet washing them with their tears and wiping them with their hair (Luke 7:36-48).
So, if all these who do not seem to believe now have at least the possibility of finding salvation at the hour of death, why are they kept in unbelief until then? Or, as we said at the beginning of this long blog, why me and why now?
So, why me, Lord? Why me now and not all the others I wish could experience what I experience in You and return to You the love You shower upon them? Perhaps because that is how Your cloth is being woven. My belief is not just for and about me in the here and now. It is also for others. All the ways I help others by my belief and hurt others in spite of my belief, all the blessings I give and the offenses I cause, somehow they all help form the fabric of life as You weave my thread in amongst all the others. So it is with those who do not believe. Their unbelief is for me and for others. The trials they create, the opportunities for love they present, the good they do and the hurt they sow, we all continually interweave with one another but, by the end, we all have the opportunity for salvation - which our free will can still reject.
Who knows why we are being woven as we are being woven. The fabric is far too complex for us to completely understand. The impact of our interacting with a thread may ultimately be felt far away from us as the threads we touch go on to touch others. Some impact I have had on a complete stranger through a wordless interaction at a traffic light may somehow rebound off the next stranger they meet to ultimately have an impact upon that stranger's daughter's friend's mother's neighbor's granddaughter's boyfriend's uncle and it all depended on what I did at that traffic light! Although God loves me as an individual, died for me as an individual sinner and values me as an individual, that is not my sole value. I also have value as part of the fabric of life, love and salvation God is weaving with us all. We do not live for ourselves - not even and maybe especially not in our salvation lives.
So, why me and why now? Because that's my thread in the fabric. In the Master Weaver's plan, He opened His gate and then granted me the grace to open mine. I can still chose to close it. May I never be so strong! May I instead submit my will to Your's, Lord, my Love, and be the passive thread woven among all my brethren as You desire. And may I not object to the way in which You interweave others with me.
What vistas of thought that model opens. I must save that for another time as this is already an onerously long entry. But how frequently do I try to direct the weaving rather than doing my job as a thread of simply making it through the next hole? Do I need to be about grandiosely doing God's work or is real faith believing that, if I do the love directly in front of me, I will really be doing God's work by yielding to His weaving hand? Hmm . . much more for me to think about. But most of all, Lord, thank you for choosing me and choosing me now. Help me be Your thread and do the love You place in front of me each moment. Thank you.
One must be logged in as a coworker in order to post a comment