But Lord, Why Me?

By Tiffany Strattan

You’re going to march into North Korea, you are going to demand the guards to see Kim Jong Un, and once you get there, you will order Kim Jong Un to end his heavy hand of ruling.

No, seriously.

You.

You, reader. Pack the minimal supplies necessary, leave all loved ones, and start preparing for your grand entrance. You will demand the world’s most unforgiving dictator to lift his oppression. You won’t need anything additional, just yourself. 

If God appeared and requested this for our life, our bodies would be consumed with anxiety and discontentment, we would lament to the Lord that “this request is illogical, a death wish, and impossible. God, you chose the wrong person. God, I do not want to. God, he will kill me. God, choose somebody else, please!”

God allowed this type of heaviness to impress upon Moses. Here is a glimpse into their conversation with that gloriously burning bush:

“Moses said to God, ‘Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out to Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11)

“Then Moses said, ‘What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’” (Exodus 4:1)

“Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’” (Exodus 4:10)

Recently, I have grieved many losses in a short amount of time. I have grieved that I am a 24 year old who needs a cane, when just 7 months ago I was exploring the medieval castles of Ireland. I am grieving that it takes everything in me to push myself out of bed, to only pee in a cup instead of using the restroom normally. I am grieving my career to become a Marriage and Family Therapist and pursuit of a masters degree has been put on hold, or possibly, is just not in the cards for me anymore. I am grieving the pain that keeps my body laying awake at night, accompanied by the emotional turmoil that I am trapped in this body that begs for healing that doesn’t come. I am grieving the possibility of never bearing my own children. I am earnestly missing worshipping with my body of believers. I grow depressed that I have felt quarantined since December, and when the national shut down due to COVID-19 becomes lifted, the groans and pains in my bones will not. 

Yet, despite all this heaviness and loss the Lord has impressed upon me, He isn’t any less God.

God was not less caring when He allowed Moses to go through heavy fear and anxiety, the same kind of emotions that begged the Father to have a different way, any other way, but this. He did not become any less God by allowing Moses to stare death in the face while declaring that he came on behalf of the Lord. Rather, it was through God going before Moses’ heavy anxieties in grace that he developed a more intimate, real, fuller knowledge of who God was. 

In fact, later on, it was only Moses who was not afraid of God when he appeared in the mountains with smoke:

“When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” 20Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” 21The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” (Exodus 20:18-21)

Would Moses have gone boldly toward the smoke if he had not intimately experienced God’s power through him? No, I think he would have been like the others, remaining at distance due their fear of the uncertainty. For those who know me personally, they know my husband and I have endured many hardships in our three years of marriage. God has allowed some very real, and very painful tribulations to come into our life. We do not wish to take back our past sufferings, for we know God in a fuller and richer way than I could have ever fabricated. And often, like the wandering Israelites, you don’t develop that connection and kind of trust (the kind of trust where you wander lonesome to a smoky mountain) unless God shows you who He is. 

My new reality involves accepting many losses, but I have real comfort in knowing I have a great High Priest, Jesus Christ, sitting at the right hand throne of God meditating on my behalf. He is sympathizing with my pains, and says I can boldly stand in front of the throne of grace and make my petition in my time of need. What a loving, intentional Father we have. And though He may not take my suffering away, I know He uses our painful experiences to give further testimony of Himself, to glorify Him, using our deepest fears and agonies. 

God is still the same sovereign King and faithful Father that His Scriptures declare. The life He has chosen for me does not contradict the attributes the Scriptures reveal Him to have. My body aches, my life is debilitated, but I can tell you, I would rather have my current sufferings than Jesus Christ not going before me. He is the richest gift I have, and His grace is sufficient for me:

“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Our Abba, our Father, our Majesty, our Lover, He will always carry His children. He will always go before them, He will always draw near, His arms will never not stop reaching, His love will not grow weary, His testimony in your life will carry out, no matter what kind of heaviness He allows to pass on you.

Like Moses in the desert, I yearn to see the land of deliverance. I grow weary of wandering after only seeing mountain tops. I desperately pray for the Lord to restore my health, that He may grant me back the life I once had. If you’re a believer, a brother and sister in Christ, I ask that you would pray for my deliverance as well. In the meantime, I press on, knowing my grief and pain is no match for God’s purpose in my life, to serve, to love Him and His people, even if it’s not how I planned. 

–Tiffany @tiffany_strattan