P.S. It's Gonna Be Good - How God's Word Answers Our Questions About Faith, Fear and All the ThingsSample

Why Them And Not Me? Why Me And Not Them?

Ever look around at others and think . . .

Why did God answer their prayer, but not mine?
Why is life so hard for me, but easy for them?
Why did they get the big break, and I’m struggling?
Essentially, why them and not me? Why me and not them?

To avoid tripping over someone else’s story and plunging even further into the comparison trap, we need only to follow the footsteps of the early church. As we step into Acts 12 and take a look around, we catch wind of two guys with very (eerily) similar circumstances.

James:

• One of the 12 disciples
• One of the three in Jesus’ inner circle
• A leader of the early church
• Arrested
• Killed by King Herod

Peter:

• One of the 12 disciples
• One of the three in Jesus’ inner circle
• A leader of the early church
• Arrested

. . . and scheduled to be killed by King Herod. Dun, dun, dunnnnn. Did your blood pressure rise too?

As Peter’s locked behind bars and we get to the 24-hour countdown to his public trial, look closely at these first-century Christians gathering together. Knowing what we know of James, it would be completely understandable if some fear, doubt, and hesitation was floating around. Like if God didn’t spare James, sorry, Pete—but who’s to say He’ll save you?

Yet instead of letting their past disappointment curb their prayers or lower their expectation, we don’t see any sign of these early Christians giving up. In fact, quite the opposite. We watch on as they pray FERVENTLY (Acts 12:5).

Spoiler: An angel appears, leads Peter straight outta prison, and leaves him on the street as a free man.

Here’s what we need to unpack: James was just as loved by God as Peter, but God wrote a different story for James than He did for Peter. That’s the awesome thing about our creative God. No one’s autobiography is the same because He doesn’t copy and paste with anyone.

So when we’re tempted to get off-course because we’re looking over our shoulder at past obstacles or gawking at the runner passing on our left, we can fight the battle of comparison in our own trials by remembering: God is doing a new thing in our lives too.

Keep running the race set before you, because knowing Him . . . it’s gonna be good.