why not me Lord??

I have a very close friend that confides in me many things about his life. I am sure that we all know and admit that we all have issues. Admittedly some have more than others. This friend is one of the best examples of a follower of Jesus that I have seen. He is a devoted husband and father and has gone out of his way to help whoever he could. I really admire him.

We were talking the other day about sins that we have in our lives. You know the type, the ones that you think you have concurred through the power of the Lord and all of a sudden they are back? He was relating to me a story of how a man was a drunk and had many other problems. When he came to Christ they all vanished.

I know that many people, including myself, may be dealing with issues in life that you have been praying about. You may have been praying about for some time. I know how frustrating it can be to see others be “ delivered” and we are still asking God what about me?

I am sure you have all heard “well if you had enough faith God would take it away.”

The proof text that most well meaning Christians use to justify this is Matt 9:29
29 Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you."

This is an example when Jesus was healing a man of blindness. As we look through the gospels we see many examples of Jesus healing people. In some cases the faith of the individual asking for the healing was necessary ( Matt 9:2, 15:28), in some faith of another, not the person needing healing, is needed ( Matt 8:13)and in still others faith was not an issue ( Luke 22:51 ). So if we read the scriptures it becomes clear that faith is not always the issue when it comes to God’s healing.

I have also heard 2Cor 5:17 be used as a proof that if we are in Christ we should not have any isues from the past.

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

If you look at the context of the scripture it is clearly speaking of our old nature. The nature that caused us to think about thinks of the world and not things of God.

So what is the way we should deal with those nagging issues that we battle over but they still come back? We should look at it through the Apostle Paul’s eyes
2Cor 12-6-9
If I had a mind to brag a little, I could probably do it without looking ridiculous, and I'd still be speaking plain truth all the way. But I'll spare you. I don't want anyone imagining me as anything other than the fool you'd encounter if you saw me on the street or heard me talk. 7Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! 8At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, 9and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.


We don’t really know what Paul’s issue was that he wanted God to take away. Some speculate that it could have been that he was obese. Some think it was his eyesight. I have even heard some that say it was not a physical thing, but the presence of people that used to follow him around and discount what he taught. But no matter what it was, it obviously caused Paul a lot of anguish. Paul was obviously a person with a passionate relationship with God. And yet that old thorn in the flesh kept digging and digging at him.

We need to understand that God is not our fairy god father. He does not exist to make our lives easy or to remove the obstacles in our lives. He wants us to come to him for all the difficult things, not so he can remove them but so we can build the relationship with him and see his grace and mercy in action.
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