I Don't Deserve That

Let’s play a game, okay?

It’s called “I don’t deserve that.”

My daughter (now three) has never had any serious medical issues.

I don’t deserve that.

Despite my best efforts to poison my body with fats, artificial flavors, and preservatives, I remain healthy enough to run, hike, and keep up with my family.

I don’t deserve that.

I have a wife who inexplicably close to marry me and has put up with far more than her share of my eccentricities, neurosis, and sins.

I don’t deserve that.

A few months ago I was going through a particularly bad period. It wasn’t that life was going badly or that some catastrophic event had struck, but rather I just felt generally down for about three. It was hardest while I was at work. I was in a new job, learning to work with new people, and experiencing push back on the things I was trying to do. On one particularly low day I took out a sheet of black packing labels (they abound aplenty at my job) and started listing all the things I was thankful for. I’ve always heard (and taught) that this is a beneficial and healthy way to approach life. We can only thank the Lord for the things we are aware of. I tried not to limit my thanks to things of great significance.

My list began to look something like this:

-          For my wife for putting up with me

-          For an amazing daughter who I am completely infatuated with

-          For pine trees

-          For the ability to grow prodigious facial hair

-          For the beauty of creation in Northern Michigan

-          That I am part of the Lord’s elect

-          For the lives of X and Y [former students] who remind me how the Lord does work in people’s lives.

It went on.

I don’t deserve any of it.

I still have that list in my desk at work. I’d like to say that I return to it often, but I forget. I forget everything that the Lord has done for me. Instead I get distracted by the concerns of the day. [read: I obsess over the concerns of the day] I get depressed over events in the world. I get beaten down by the sin in my own life.

I know that the Lord has done some amazing things in my life. Paul says that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This alone should prompt me to reflect and praise the Lord. However, while profound and theologically accurate, this often seems too grandiose; the words too (dare I say it) familiar at this point in my spiritual life. It fades in light of the pressing concerns of the day.

What breaks us of our familiarity is forcing ourselves to come face-to-face with the multitudes of ways in which the Lord has blessed us. We take it for granted. If we’re not careful we can flip the phrase on its head and begin uttering “I don’t deserve this” in anger when things don’t go the way we envision rather than realizing that we deserve absolutely nothing. I know myself. I know my history. I know my present. I know that I deserve none of what the Lord has blessed me with.

Some days we just need to see it.

To see it written down in ink.

The facts.

Everything.

So that we can look up again and say, with surety, “I don’t deserve that.”

And we can praise the giver of the things we don’t deserve.