Why is this happening to me?

Do you see that picture?

That is a picture of my phone and my keys, the two most crucial things to have on one's person in today's world.  Except, those are not my keys.  Nope.  Not my keys.

That is the spare key.

You know what this means, right?  Right.  Yes.  I lost my keys.

I don't know when I lost them, either.  Yesterday, I used Shawn's car all day.

This morning, I had a Bible study to teach.  It was our last lesson in Nehemiah.  I was all ready to go.

But then I could not find my keys.

The frustration expanded until I gave in.  Why? I lamented.  Why are my keys neatly stowed in my purse--or in the brass key basket on the shelf--most all of the time, but then when I have to get to a Bible study before 9:30 a.m. and be the teacher, when I have an obligation to go where I am supposed to be an example and an inspiration, why then do those pesky keys go missing?

Why is this happening to me?  I heard the words coming out of my mouth: selfish, prideful words.  I know better than to use these words, to ask such petty, self-centered questions.  Shawn helped me search pockets, remote corners of counters, desks, drawers, any random spot we could think of.

Worry welled up, because my key to the church was also on the missing key chain.  What if I arrived and there was nobody to let us in?  Time kept ticking, and finally I figured I had to take my chances with the spare key.  It was late enough that if nobody with a key to the church was at church, then there wouldn't need to be any Bible study at all.

I lamented (some might call it yelling), but I did not break down and cry.  Perhaps it would have been better if I had cried.  I don't know.  I drove to church with the spare key.

Cars stood in the parking lot.  The door was unlocked.  Coffee was prepared and laid out.  Friendly faces and kind words greeted me.  It turned out okay.  The Holy Spirit soothed me and warmed the room.  We finished Nehemiah.

Yet, I still haven't found my keys.  They could be anywhere between here and Anoka, Minnesota, because I had them in Anoka on Monday morning, and that's the last time I remember seeing them.

Those pesky words keep coming to me, in spite of the guilt I feel when I ask the question:  Why is this happening to me?  I strive to be organized and to put things in the right place so they will be there when I need them.  I try so hard, and I fail constantly anyway.

We fail all the time, but God is gracious.

This is a tricky truth.  I'm just starting to figure it out, so I probably ought not be writing about it yet.  There is a tension, you see.

We cannot become comfortable with our constant failing; we must not grow to accept it and loll about in it.  The Bible is clear on this.  The Apostle Paul writes, "What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  By no means!" (Romans 6:1-2a)  By no means, Paul says.  An emphatic no!  When sin increases, grace does increase all the more (Romans 5:20), but this is no excuse for us to be complacent in sin.  It certainly is not our job to sin in order to compel God to pour out extra grace.  That is not the way it works.  We must flee sin, abhor sin, view sin as the enemy of our souls and of our Lord.  When we fail, we must grieve over the failure.

Yet, in our grief, we must not despair.  We must not give in to a despairing grief.  We must not give up and throw in the towel.  We must not decide that righteousness is too hard, that it is unattainable, that it isn't worth the struggle.  We must not deduce that God doesn't care, won't help us, and only lives to laugh at our doom.  Can't you see?  It is Satan who lives to laugh at our doom, Satan who whispers in our ears that righteousness isn't worth it and life isn't precious.

Satan is our enemy, and the pathway to God is a narrow ledge with steep cliffs falling off on both sides.  Satan cavorts gleefully, knocking us one direction and then the other, not caring a whit whether he causes us to fall off the left side or the right, as long as we fall.

When we fail, we need to look up.  Up.  To Jesus, who holds out His hand to us, His compassionate, righteous, powerful right hand.  He loves us so much.  Jesus is right there, right here, our Immanuel, countering Satan as we struggle along oblivious, not seeing, not knowing what battles He handles for us moment by moment.

I was reading in the book of Judges the other day, and I saw something precious that I had never seen before:

Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites.  The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, "Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!"

"Sir," Gideon replied, "if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?  And where are the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say, 'The Lord has brought us up out of Egypt'?  But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites."

Judges 6:11b-13 (NLT)

In the past, I always thought it was funny that an angel approached this cowardly man, who was hiding in a winepress to thresh his wheat, and addressed him as, "Mighty Hero."  But the other day, I noticed something different.

I noticed what Gideon said:  "If the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us?"

"If the Lord is with us, then why has all this happened to us?"

Isn't that exactly the question we all struggle with?  Why is this happening to me?

God's response to Gideon is amazing.  God told Gideon to go with the strength he had and rescue Israel.  "I am sending you!" God said.  Gideon protested that he was not strong enough nor important enough to accomplish such a feat, and we would tend to agree with him, but God replied, "I will be with you, and you will destroy the Midianites."

In the account that follows, God patiently takes this timid, fearful man through encounter after encounter, building his courage and his confidence.  In the end, Gideon proves to be a Mighty Hero, just as the angel had named him in the beginning.

When I am weak, then I am strong.  God is working on me.  When I lament, "Why is this happening to me," it is a failure of faith, an indulgence in self-pity.  Yet, when I come shame-faced to Jesus, He does not rub my nose in my dirt.  He pours grace on me and helps me get up to do the next thing, in His power, not my own, and in victory, because He is with me.

Your goodness, O Lord, is astounding.  You are patient and kind.  Please help me grow worthier of your grace by permeating my being with Your Spirit.  Teach me Your ways and transform me into Your likeness.  Use me to be a conduit of Your love for the world.  Help me broadcast to others the grace You have invested in me.



addendum:  I found my keys on the floor of the van, which we had driven to and from Minnesota.  I found them when I started throwing away the accumulated trash that had collected under the seats.  There is a spiritual lesson in this, too...