What Did I Do to Deserve This?

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“What did I do to deserve this?” Or, “What did we do to deserve this?” Understandable sentiments that often cross our minds when we are facing some sort of tragedy, hardship, or other difficult time/situation, I believe many times we often undersell the truly transformative nature of these questions.

In today’s very brief Let’s Do Lunch devotion, I want to invite you to ponder the idea of trying to figure out what you did to deserve a particular thing not from a negative perspective but from a more positive direction.

Before we go too much further, hear these words from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, chapter two, verses four through seven:

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Paul’s word here of God’s love for us even when we are deliberately living a life that is focused in ways other than actively pursuing God’s will reminds us that God’s love for us is based strictly on the love a creator has for their creation. God doesn’t - thank God - turn the love of God away from us when we are living in such a way as to deserve everything BUT God’s favor.

Friends, please do not let yourself be trapped in a cycle of, “Woe is me, what did I do to deserve all this?” to the point you miss the perspective of bathing in the glory that comes from God’s love for us NO MATTER WHAT WE MIGHT DO.

Now, don’t get me wrong. God does not coerce us into loving God. God doesn’t say that we must love God in order to receive divine favor and love - by no means! God loves us even in the depths of our disobedience. 

My friends, let’s take time today to dwell on the joy of knowing we are recipients of unmerited grace, acknowledging the answer to the question of, “What did I do to deserve this?” is, simply, absolutely nothing.