“I don’t deserve this…”
“Its cancer,” I heard the oncologist say. Whatever else she said was lost to my benumbed mind. My heart was preoccupied with its own entitled thought: “I don’t deserve this!” At the first moment of quiet, I turned to God in a prayer of defiant reckoning. “Listen, I don’t know what in the world is going on, but I don’t deserve this. I have loved you and served you since I’ve been a little girl, I have honored my parents, served my family tirelessly, lived simply to give generously, traveled for missions, embraced the role of midwife for the sake of the Kingdom,…” (I will spare you the rest of my self-righteous rant.) “I don’t know what You’re doing, what Your point is, what is loving about this and how this is any reward for how I’ve lived…but, I don’t deserve this.”
Into my heart came the voice of my God, “‘Deserve,’ Christina? Shall we talk about what you deserve? For one sin -just one- you are relegated eternally and irretrievably to hell. Total separation from Me. Agony and death. That is what you deserve.” His words sank into my heart. He was right, of course.
“But I took what you deserved: your punishment, your shame, your death, your separation from God. I took it on My body on the cross so that you can now have what you don’t deserve: forgiveness, relationship with God, the Holy Spirit’s constant presence, grace, an eternal home and every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So, you’re right, you are getting what you don’t deserve. I took what you did deserve. If you question how love is in the midst of this trial, look at the cross. I have loved you before you ever loved Me. Before you ever did anything for Me. I have loved you to death and nothing can separate you from My love.”
As I sat considering the cross, my spirit gave assent that this was true and my defiant flesh was quiet- for a little while. I have remembered this great truth daily for the last two years. It has kept me from self-pity. It has kept me from despair. It has kept me from bitterness. It has kept me from self-righteousness. It has kept me from accusing God. The great truth is this:
[God] does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Psalm 103:10-12
Friends, have you ever shaken your head in bewilderment or defiance? “I don’t deserve this!” This loss. This burden. This conflict. This accusation. This sickness. This isolation. This brokenness. This financial hardship. This set back. May I encourage you to come to the cross and see what love the Father has bestowed on you? He doesn’t treat you as your sins deserve. May I suggest that there is great joy outweighing great sorrow? He doesn’t leave you alone in your trial but He comes to you. May I propose all that God allows in your and my life is to turn our gaze toward Him Whom we don’t deserve and yet possess? Will you join me, in the midst of tremendous trials, affirming “I don’t deserve This!”
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18