Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
February 28, 2003
God Is Not Picking On You
A man came to see a colleague of mine for help, and he asked my friend two questions. “Rabbi, what do you do when you are drowning in troubles? And why is God picking on me?” He then went on to explain: “I’m going through a divorce and it is not a very nice one.” (Parenthetically, I think a “nice divorce” is an oxymoron.) “It also looks as if my business is going to go down the tubes. And, as if that is not enough, last week I found out that my mother is seriously ill. Now if these things had happened to me one at a time, perhaps I could handle them; but, when they come on me all at the same time, I feel that I am drowning. So, I’ve come here to ask what do you do when you are drowning, and why is God picking on me this way?”
What should we do when life’s problems come upon us all at the same time and seem to overwhelm us? I can’t help but think that everyone of us here today can honestly say that we have had this experience at some time in our life, the experience of feeling that life is simply too much for us, that we are drowning in a deluge of troubles.
One of my very favorite passages from the Machzor, our Holyday prayerbook, which I quote at funerals from time to time, is that life is a journey which goes from birth to death to life everlasting; but the journey is not the same for all people.
For some people, I don’t know why, the journey is smooth.
For others, I don’t know why, the journey is rough.
For some people, I don’t know why, the journey is long.
For others, I don’t know why, the journey is short.
In my career, I’ve had a funeral one day for a young man who died in his twenties and the next week I buried a woman who was in her 96th year, so the journey of life is not the same – not in length, not in success, not in joy. What is the same for all of us is that at some point along the road of life, with no exceptions, we all encounter a storm of troubles. We are all buffeted by winds which show us no mercy and, when that happens, we feel overwhelmed. Perhaps if our troubles came upon us one at a time, we might be able to handle them. But when they come upon us in droves, one after another after another after another, without any let-up in between, we feel as if we are floundering.
When that happens, the first thing we need to know is that being kind, that being nice, that being religious, that being just, that going to Temple, that doing good deeds, that helping Israel, that praying every day or donating to the Rebuilding the Temple campaign, that all of these things are good and praiseworthy and should be done – but none of these things is any guarantee that catastrophe and calamity won’t strike you.
If you want proof, all you have to do is look at the lives of our three patriarchs. Abraham was a pious man, a courageous man, a man of great faith, yet look at all the troubles he had. Heartache from his nephew who was like a surrogate son, children who fought bitterly, and in his old age, he lost his wife who was the life-partner of his pioneering spirit.
Isaac was pious, yet he nearly died as a youth; his children fought over his blessing in his old age and he lost his eyesight. That is real trouble, isn’t it?
Jacob was pious, yet his whole life from before he was born until after he died was one unending story of heartache and trouble, sorrow and distress.
And so it is clear that God is not picking on you or me when we have troubles. We are not being singled out; we are not the only ones, and it is clear that you can be nice and just and religious and good, close to God, and you can still have troubles. The purpose of religion is not to be an inoculation, amulet, umbrella or insurance policy against troubles. If it were, we would all be religious, not out of piety, but out of prudence. Problems come to all of us as we travel the road of life and, when they do, we find ourselves in great distress.
There are some days, some weeks, some months when everything seems to go right, when the sun shines and the breeze is gentle and we are “on a roll” – everything we do seems to go right. But there are other days and weeks and months when everything we do seems to go wrong. When the business fails and our health declines and the things that are the foundation of our lives shake and both day and night are dark – what do we do then?
I. I have already suggested the first thing. We need to sit down and do nothing much, maybe breathe deeply until our body quiets down and we are able to think clearly and get hold of our emotions. Let us put things in perspective – there is nothing which has happened to me which has not happened to many others. I am a unique creature, but my troubles are not unique. Tsores comes to me in different ways, but it comes to everyone. I have not been selected as a special target for life’s worst blows.
Furthermore, I know that as a human being I run the risk of something like this. Life means exposure to all sorts of things, including the winds of disappointment, disease, defeat and death. People of faith do not get breaks denied to others; we share in heartaches and heartbreaks with the same impartiality. People of faith get divorces, go bankrupt, have accidents, develop lumps in the breast, have tumors in the colon, land in intensive care units just as those who have no religion at all. God is not picking on me.
Yet, I also know people who, despite their problems and their troubles, lived nobly and achieved much and, if they did it, so can I. I do not know how I am going to handle this but, by the grace of God, I will. I know that from sources of which I may not even be conscious help will come. I do not know exactly how it will come, I do not know how I am going to handle this emergency, but I know I can; I can do all things through God who strengthens me. This is the perspective which is the first step toward confronting our troubles.
II. Step two. Determine if there is anything at all we can do ourselves about our problems. There is nothing that can take the place of one’s own rolled-up sleeves. God does not do for us what we can and ought to do for ourselves.
You can teach your son or daughter how to bake a cake, but you cannot teach them that they cannot have their cake and eat it too – that they have to learn by themselves; nobody else can teach that lesson to them.
And one of the things we all have to learn, if we are to become grownups, is this – God does not do for us what we can do by and for ourselves. If God did, we would be ruined. Look what happens when we give a child everything that he or she wants without effort all through their childhood. How do such children usually end up? They are either spoiled rotten or delinquent.
So if you need a job, go out and look for one. You may not find just what your heart desires at first but, if you do not look, you will not find any – jobs do not come looking for you until you go looking for them.
If you want to find the meaning of life, begin to make some little corner of your life mean something. If you want to get well, work with the forces of nature that will help to make you well; use all the help medical science can offer. When we are drowning in troubles, see if there is anything at all that we ourselves can do about them – do not tie one of God’s hands or our hands behind our back.
III. Step three. We can turn to someone else, someone who will listen patiently and caringly to our problems, someone who will hear us out. Who knows, that person may even have a good suggestion or two to offer, or that person may be able to lead us to someone else who can help, perhaps a doctor or a lawyer or a counselor, some wise person. And even is he or she cannot help, just being listened to will do some good.
What good is a friend if you cannot share your troubles with him or her? Fair weather friends we do not need. We need the kind of friends we can talk to when we are drowning in tsores. We need the kind who will listen to us when we are hurting, for it does some good some times just to be able to pour out what is inside your heart. Even if the friends do not do anything more than just listen sympathetically, that is helpful.
IV. Step four. If you feel overwhelmed by a problem or by a host of problems, remember you can always hold on a little bit longer than you think you can. And if you do, you never can tell when the winds will shift and the sun will come out and things will get better.
They honored Bette Davis a few years ago at Lincoln Center for a long and distinguished career as an actress. The story in the newspaper about the honors began with this paragraph.
“She looks good, not great, not terrific, but she looks good. And considering that she’s had two serious heart attacks, three strokes and that she lived through the deaths of two husbands and a divorce from a third one, and she has endured a few other blows besides – she looks good – not great, not terrific, but she looks good.”
That is the way to describe a woman who was in her eighties, but who was still holding on, a woman who had every right and reason to quit, but she still held out a little bit longer. God bless her for that.
There is an expression in Yiddish mir zol nisht divisen vifel mer ken delayden – no one should ever find out how much he or she can take. It is true. There have been times in our lives when if someone had asked in advance could you survive this and that, we would have said “no.” But now when we look back, we see that we did survive. No one should ever find out how much they can take.
V. Step five. I sort of hesitate to say this for fear you will think this is Rabbi talk, and maybe it is naive, but I happen to think that an important thing we can do when we are drowning in troubles is pray.
Prayer is not magic; prayer is not a cure-all. But, when you and I pray, we somehow seem, at least some times, to collect our thoughts and to calm our spirits. Sometimes, somehow we are able to see things a little bit more clearly and sometimes a little bit more brightly. Sometimes we begin to think better; a new idea comes into our minds. We may be able to see our way out of the woods while we are talking it over with God.
And in that quietness maybe, just maybe, God will speak to us. Maybe God will say ‘I wish there were a simple solution to all that you are going through, but there isn’t. It is going to take time, but hang in there and we will work together and we will see it through.’
God has said that to me in my life, and perhaps God has said it to you. ‘There is no easy way out, but hang in there and we will see it through.’
These are five things we can do when we are drowning in troubles. We can sit down and get perspective. We can look at our problems and determine what we can do about them. We can turn to a friend for help. We can hang in a little longer. And we can pray.
There is a very beautiful vignette which has always been meaningful to me. When we think that God is picking on us or that God has forgotten us, I recommend “Footprints.”
One night, a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with God. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. In each scene, the man noticed two sets of footprints in the sand – one belonged to him and one belonged to God.
When the last scene had flashed before him, the man looked back at the footprints and noticed that many times along the path, there was only one set of footprints in the sand. And he noticed that this happened during the lowest and saddest times of his life. That really bothered the man and he questioned God.
“God, You said that once I decided to follow You, You would never leave me, and that You would walk all the way with me. But, I noticed that during troublesome times in my life, there was only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why. When I needed You most, You deserted me.”
God replied, “My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your time of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
When things do not go well, let us not clench our fist and rebel, thinking that God has deserted us. That just may be when God is closest to us. A clenched fist never produces anything but a blow. It is the open hand of faith that is free to point to the unreachable stars, paint the unpaintable picture and heal the unhealable wounds. God does not pick on us; if we have let God into our life, God picks us up and helps carry us. Amen
In preparing this message, I have benefited from the writings of Dr. Woodrow W. Hasty and Rabbi Jack Riemer.
