Is God Punishing Me?
One of the questions that I receive often as a preacher comes from people who are unhappy with their circumstances. In their efforts to steer their life in a certain direction, when things just don’t seem to work out the way they hoped, they ask in their discouragement, “Why is all of this happening to me?” Or maybe, “Is God punishing me?” Just google: “Is God Punishing Me?” You’ll find out that people ask this all the time and there are a lot of wild and false answers coming back to them.
But I want to attempt to answer the question from Scripture. In other words, why don’t we just ask God and see what he says?
“Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.’” (John 9:1-3). In this short article, I don’t have time to discuss the book of Job or Job’s life or the comments of our Savior in Luke 13:2. Certainly, there are other passages in the Bible that also address this topic that you can reference.
But let’s do what we can. Are the current circumstances which we are in, but not in favor of, necessarily examples of divine punishment in response to sin? I think the answer is unequivocally, “No.” That doesn’t mean sin doesn’t have immediate and lasting consequences. There is no doubt that specific poor choices lead to negative fallout in our lives. But if we were to look at who God really is we would be better served to recognize that the opposite is more likely to be true. God offers grace and opportunity through human frailty and weakness. It was through the rejection of Christ and the sins that nailed him to the cross that God chose to save those who would believe.
Jesus told his apostles clearly in John 9 that the blind man was not born blind due to any sin. That is not how God works. God is not interested in rendering temporary punishments for eternal choices. This is why we often stand by watching as vile and wicked people experience physical blessings that tend to escape the righteous. For evil people, the extent of any reward they will ever receive will only be for their earthly lifespan. When they meet Christ at the judgment, they are going to have to forever reap what they have sown in the spiritual sense. Punishment will come to them at that time in and it will not be diluted.
I think the real question to ask – when things are not going our way – is not, “Is God punishing me?” I think instead we should ask, “What can I learn and how can I grow from this experience?” Jesus said that it was in the blind man’s blindness that the glory of God would be revealed. In fact, if the man had not been blind he never could have known the blessing of Christ’s healing! His handicap turned out to be his salvation! He learned about genuine faith! He experienced the power of Christ in his life! He gained an understanding of mercy and grace! He was taught to favor dependence on God rather than to rely on self. In the end, it was the blind man who ended up significantly better off than the people around him who were born with working eyes. Jesus concluded that what the blind man eventually saw was a vision that only someone with his impairment could ever understand.
So if things are not as you want them to be don’t ever put the blame on God. Everything was perfect in the world God created until sin came – and that was our fault. Since that time, God has been doing everything he can to save us from it. We are the ones who keep getting in his way.
In response to human sin, God has made sure that earth will never be heaven. He allows for us to struggle here for a little while so that we can love him for what he is preparing. And if, yes if, things are exactly just the way you want them to be at all times here I want you to know that this is actually bad news for you. This world is passing away…
“And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things?’” – Luke 13:2
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AUTHOR: Jeremiah Tatum
