Why Has All This Happened to Us?

Sometimes it’s hard to relate to stories from the Old Testament but there is one moment recorded there that is infinitely relatable. It happened with Gideon.

Gideon was a leader of Israel after they had been delivered from Egypt and made their home in the Promised Land. During the time God called him to lead, Israel was under assault from neighboring tribes.

Against the backdrop of this warfare, an angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and says, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

Gideon is not a man of pretense, though, and his response reflects that. He replies, “But sir, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?”

“If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” This is the cry of many a heart under siege by any number of assaulting circumstances.

You would think (we say to ourselves) that IF we are loved by God and IF we are obedient to His Word and IF we are trying our best to serve Him, THEN you would think He would make our lives – if not easy, exactly, well, at least, not devastating. Certainly, we expect to have SOME trouble but surely if we pray through the trouble and proclaim His name through the trouble and tell others about Him through the trouble then surely He will provide a miracle to deliver us from the trouble. Right?

I mean, wouldn’t it be to His glory and wouldn’t others see how real He is if He delivered us miraculously from this trouble?

And sometimes miracles occur. I’ve seen them. I’ve experienced them. And sometimes they don’t occur. I’ve seen that. I’ve lived that.

“If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?”

I don’t know.

But, I do know some things.

I know that God does not deliver miracles to satisfy people’s insatiable desire to witness them. He says so in Matthew 12:38 – 40 “Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you. He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

He doesn’t call us to seek after miracles but to seek after Him.

Another thing I know is that Jesus promised we would have trouble in this life. John 16:33b says “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

We are only passing through this world. We have an eternal life waiting beyond. Some of us will have trouble on this earth until we die – even if we love the Lord, even if He is with us. But it will pass and we will remain.

Another thing I know is that Satan is an accuser. Revelation 12:9-11 describes His defeat.“The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

The evil one works to destroy our hearts. He accuses us to God and he accuses God to us. It’s a tactic. It’s a maneuver. It’s a trick. Don’t fall for it.

Does trouble come to us because we have done wrong? We’ve ALL done wrong, every last human on earth has done wrong. If we look for it in an individual, we’ll find it. Sometimes we know trouble of our own making, sometimes we receive joys and graces and kindnesses we don’t deserve and sometimes we see trouble we didn’t bring on ourselves.

If God is with us, why has all this happened to us?

I don’t know.

But I know that in the midst of the trouble that comes – no matter why it comes – there is no other place I want to be standing than near the heart of God, on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to endure hardship or to receive miraculous relief or to face death.

The Lord is with you mighty warrior. Stand firm. In this world, you will have trouble but He has overcome the world.