Why [Not] Me?

When we face a problem, potential, need, or opportunity, there are two questions we can ask:

Why me, Lord?

Or:

Why not me, Lord?

The questions are separated by one word, but they can send a life in completely different directions. One can become a cry of honest grief. One can become a loop of comparison, self-pity, and hopelessness. One can expose ambition. One can create availability. One can ask God to remove the burden. The other can ask Him how to carry it.

I have asked both versions more times than I could count.

I have asked “Why me?” from real pain, when life felt random, unfair, heavy, and impossible to understand. I have also asked it while looking sideways at somebody else’s life and treating his blessing like evidence that God had withheld mine. I have asked “Why not me?” with faith and courage. I have also asked it with ego, entitlement, and a desire to prove I was capable of becoming more impressive than the person I was watching.

The words alone do not make the question holy.

The posture does.

“Why me?” asks why the burden found me. “Why not me?” asks what God can do through me carrying it.

You Are Allowed to Ask

Before turning “Why me?” into the villain of this Field Note, we need to tell the truth: faithful people ask painful questions.

Job asked why he had not died at birth.

David asked how long God would forget him and hide His face.

Moses stood in front of a calling and asked, “Who am I?” Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Scripture does not airbrush suffering into polite religious language. It gives grief a voice.

Lament is not unbelief. It is pain that still knows where to speak.

When a person says, “Why me, God?” from the floor, hospital room, courtroom, funeral, relapse, betrayal, diagnosis, or night he is not sure he can survive, the first response should not be a lecture about attitude. He may need somebody to sit beside him, listen, pray, protect him, help him find care, or simply keep him from being alone until the darkness passes.

God is not intimidated by the question. He would rather receive the honest cry than watch us hide behind language we do not believe.

The danger begins when a question becomes an agreement. Lament says, “God, I do not understand what is happening.” Victimhood says, “This proves nothing good can happen through me.” Lament keeps speaking to God. Self-pity eventually speaks only to itself. Lament asks for presence. Self-pity can reject every exit that does not include the past being rewritten.

Depression is not a moral failure, and a person cannot always think his way out of it by changing a sentence. But the stories we repeatedly agree with can deepen hopelessness or create room for the next faithful action. “Why me?” becomes dangerous when it stops being a question brought to God and becomes the final explanation for why life cannot move forward.

Why Him and Not Me?

I remember lying in bed one night thinking about Elon Musk. At the time, I was watching a man with billions of dollars and enormous influence, and my internal conversation with God was not especially humble.

God, why would You give him billions of dollars and that much influence, and You will not even give me one?

I meant one billion, by the way. I was not asking for a dollar. Apparently, even my complaints had aggressive financial targets.

I was not ready for the answer.

God did not explain Elon’s calling, congratulate my ambition, or hand me a strategy for multiplying the money in my account. What I sensed instead was:

“You need to make some life changes.”

That answer exposed the problem beneath my question. I believed my limitation was opportunity. God began showing me that my limitation was alignment. I wanted more reach while several forces already had too much access to my attention, emotions, choices, and identity.

I asked God for more influence.

He asked me what was influencing me.

Delete All of It

I asked where He wanted me to start.

The first answer was:

“Delete all of your social media.”

My reaction was basically: Hahaha. What?

Social media had been a source of real provision. I had maxed out Facebook friends, built multiple groups, developed a large network, and had around 20,000 followers and connections on LinkedIn. I had convinced myself I needed it for business. This was not merely a place where I watched videos or posted family photos. It was part of the engine.

I knew how to build an audience, generate opportunities, develop relationships, and turn online attention into business. Deleting everything felt irresponsible. It was like asking a fisherman to throw the boat away because he had spent too much time on the water.

But there was no hesitation.

I said okay, and I deleted the profiles.

There are moments when obedience takes longer to explain than to perform. Had I opened a committee meeting inside my mind, created a risk analysis, calculated lost reach, asked twenty people what they thought, downloaded every connection, built a twelve-month transition plan, and waited for the ideal business season, the instruction would have died beneath responsible-sounding delay.

Instead, it was gone.

The shocking part was that deleting social media was only the first instruction.

No More Alcohol

The next thing I sensed was:

“No more alcohol.”

That one was harder to swallow, which is an unfortunate but accurate way to say it.

On good days, I liked to celebrate. On bad days, I liked to numb the pain. Alcohol had a role in both directions, which meant almost any day could become a reasonable day to drink. Success created the toast. Failure created the escape. Stress justified taking the edge off. Travel made it social. Business made it networking. A hard night made it medicine I prescribed to myself.

Once again, I said okay.

Danielle realized something was happening almost immediately. The next day, we were traveling to an event. There was an airport lounge: nothing. There was business class: nothing. When we landed, we met a friend for lunch at an Irish pub: still nothing.

By that point, the pattern was strange enough that she asked what was going on.

I told her what I believed God had said. She was dumbfounded.

For the first time in decades, I was free from social media, free from alcohol, and beginning to become free from other habits and addictions that had filled noise, celebration, pressure, boredom, and pain. The removal felt extreme because the access had become normal.

Some chains feel like tools until God asks you to put them down.

The Billion Dollars Never Came

God did not give me a billion dollars as a reward for deleting profiles and stopping drinking.

He gave me something better.

Over most of the next year, relationships changed. Old wounds began to heal. Parts of my life were restored. My thinking became clearer. I could hear what was happening inside me without immediately reaching for something to amplify, distract, celebrate, or numb it.

The blessing was not an upgraded number in an account. It was access to my own life again.

That may sound less exciting than a billion dollars until you understand how much money, opportunity, influence, trust, health, and time a person can lose while refusing to be present inside his own decisions. God was not withholding the platform. He was rebuilding the man who wanted to stand on it.

I had assumed greater influence would prove I had become more valuable. God showed me that surrender was already valuable when nobody was watching. I wanted more followers. He wanted fewer masters. I wanted more visibility. He gave me clarity. I wanted expansion. He began with subtraction.

God answered my request for more by showing me what had to become less.

The almost-year of sobriety did not make every problem disappear. It made it harder to disappear from the problems. Without alcohol, I had to feel grief instead of automatically dulling it. Without social media, I could not measure every day through reactions, reach, comparison, and new opportunities. Silence stopped feeling empty and began revealing what had been buried beneath the noise.

It all started with one agreement: If You said it, I will do it.

One Glass of Wine

The season ended with another agreement.

One night, as I approached a year of sobriety, I was praying and thought: God, what would happen if I drank one glass of wine?

I heard nothing.

There was no thunder. No warning. No audible refusal. No dramatic spiritual interruption. Just silence.

I treated the silence like permission.

That distinction matters. I did not receive a new instruction. I asked whether I could reopen a door God had clearly told me to close, and when I did not hear an immediate no, I began renegotiating the original agreement.

God’s silence is not permission to renegotiate what He already made clear.

The glass was not magic. The moment cannot be reduced to a beverage possessing enough power to erase an entire year. The deeper change was agreement. I had moved from If You said it, I will do it to If You do not stop me again, I will do what I want.

Once I let it back into my life, the next several years carried more of the old pattern than I want to admit. Alcohol again found uses in celebration, pressure, travel, stress, disappointment, and pain.

For me, it repeatedly opened the road toward depression, numbing, isolation, and the darker form of “Why me?”

This is not me declaring that every person’s story with alcohol is identical or that one recurrence makes recovery fake. Recovery is rarely a perfectly straight line, and shame is a terrible long-term treatment plan. The lesson is personal and direct: I knew what God had told me, I experienced the clarity obedience produced, and I still tested whether I could keep the old thing without losing the new life.

I could not.

When the Question Turns Inward

During that first sober year, my posture was often Send me or Why not me?

I saw a need and wondered how I could help.

I saw an opportunity and assumed there had to be a way. \

I believed a hard assignment could be attempted before I had proof I would succeed.

After alcohol returned, “Why me?” gained more territory. When things went wrong, the question became less about understanding and more about explaining why I was uniquely trapped. Why did this happen to me? Why did God allow this? Why was rebuilding so hard? Why did other people receive what I had worked for? Why was I still carrying consequences? Why could I not get relief?

The pain underneath those questions was real. The lawsuits, business failures, pressure, health battles, relationship wounds, depression, and responsibility for a growing family were not invented by a bad attitude. Alcohol did not create every problem. It did, however, make it easier for me to numb the pain instead of processing it, and the numbness often came with a darker emotional bill later.

“Why me?” can become a victim’s plea when it makes every possible next step dependent on somebody else changing first. It can convince a person he has no agency, no help, no calling, no exit, and no reason to believe another page exists. When it combines with depression, isolation, substance use, and suicidal thinking, the question can become dangerous enough to threaten life.

That is not a moment for a slogan. It is a moment to tell somebody, reach for support, involve people who can help, and refuse to remain alone with a conclusion formed in darkness.

There is no weakness in needing help to survive the night.

I Just Never Thought I Couldn’t

A close friend once told me that when he watches Cars 3, he thinks of me. Cruz Ramirez asks Lightning McQueen how he knew he could race when he first showed up. His answer, in essence, is simple:

“I just never thought I couldn’t.”

That line describes one of the biggest contributors to my success. I rarely believed I could not do something merely because I had not done it yet.

My instinct was: Why not me? What is fundamentally different between me and the person who figured this out? We are both human. We both have twenty-four hours in a day. There has to be a way.

That mindset helped me enter industries I did not grow up in, build businesses without the ideal pedigree, move across the country, develop relationships in unfamiliar cities, travel the world, take on enormous projects, and keep moving after failures that could have become permanent endings.

It is easier to think that way when the mind is clear and not constantly numbed, clouded, recovering, comparing, or trying to manage the emotional debt from the night before.

But “Why not me?” also needs to mature.

We do not all begin with the same resources, health, history, connections, obligations, trauma, education, or opportunity. Having twenty-four hours does not make every starting line equal. Confidence does not turn every desire into a calling, and effort does not obligate God to give me another person’s assignment.

The useful part of Why not me? is not entitlement. It is refusing to disqualify yourself before obedience begins.

Why Not Me Is Not Automatically Holy

The question I asked while thinking about Elon Musk was also “Why not me?” I wanted his billions and influence. That question did not initially lead toward service. It led toward comparison.

Why not me for the money?

Why not me for the audience?

Why not me for the recognition?

Why not me for the power to change things?

Those desires were not all evil. Money can build. Influence can serve. An audience can receive truth. Power can protect. But when “Why not me?” is centered on obtaining another person’s outcome, it can become envy wearing the uniform of faith.

God redirected the question. He did not answer, Why not you? Here is the billion. He answered, in effect, Before we discuss what should move through your hands, we need to address what already has hold of your heart.

The mature version of “Why not me?” is not a demand for somebody else’s success.

It is an offer of availability.

“Why not me?” becomes holy when it stops asking for the spotlight and starts volunteering for the assignment.

Who Am I?

Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?”

That is another form of “Why me?”

He saw the assignment, measured it against his history and limitations, and recognized a gap too large for his confidence to cross.

God’s answer in Exodus 3 was not a motivational speech about Moses’ hidden greatness. He said, “I will be with you.”

That changes the foundation of confidence.

The answer to “Why me?” is not always a list of qualifications. Sometimes it is presence. God does not need me to become Elon, Moses, Isaiah, David, a better entrepreneur, a more impressive Christian, or a flawless sober man before He can use my obedience. He asks whether I will trust that His presence can carry what my ability cannot.

Then Isaiah hears the Lord ask, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah answers:

“Here am I. Send me!”

That is “Why not me?” in its surrendered form.

It is not: Send me because I am obviously the best.

It is: I am here. I heard the need. My life is available.

The Cost of Send Me

We like the phrase “send me” when it sounds like adventure, influence, stage lights, business growth, international travel, miracles, victories, and purpose. Sometimes God sends a person directly into subtraction.

Send me may mean delete the audience.

Send me may mean put down the drink.

Send me may mean leave the room where everybody knows your name.

Send me may mean tell Danielle what God said and let her watch whether you obey.

Send me may mean feel emotions you have been numbing for decades. It may mean losing the convenience of a coping mechanism before you have learned healthier ways to carry the pressure. It may mean becoming less visible while God repairs what visibility had allowed you to avoid.

Availability is not proved by how loudly we volunteer. It is proved by whether we still obey when the assignment begins by removing something we wanted to keep.

I wanted influence. God asked for consecration.

I wanted resources. God asked for agreement.

I wanted a reason He should choose me. God showed me the choices preventing me from becoming fully available.

The answer to “Why me?” was not that I deserved more. It was that God wanted more of me.

Back on the Sober Path

Years later, I am back on the sober path and believing more than ever: Why not me?

That does not mean I believe I am bulletproof, finished, incapable of recurrence, or entitled to every outcome I can imagine.

I know how quickly one question can become a negotiation and how easily silence can be used as a loophole.

I know clarity has to be protected through agreement, accountability, daily choices, and a willingness to tell the truth before the old pattern gains momentum.

I also know the previous years are not wasted simply because I stumbled after a strong beginning. The sober year was real. The relapse was real. The depression was real. The return is real. Grace does not require me to label the entire journey either victory or failure. It allows the testimony to contain both the clarity and the cost of walking away from it.

“Why me?” still visits. Pain does not disappear because I found a better phrase. There are days when the burden feels unfair, the calling feels expensive, and another person’s life appears easier. The difference is that I do not have to let the question become the ending.

I can bring the pain to God, tell somebody the truth, receive help, remember what He already made clear, and ask a second question:

Why not me?

Why not me to break the pattern?

Why not me to tell the story?

Why not me to serve the person still trapped in the same question?

Why not me to raise children who see honesty instead of hiding?

Why not me to use business, influence, resources, and relationships without allowing them to become masters?

Why not me to return after relapse, stand after failure, and make today another day of obedience?

Not because I am stronger than everybody else.

Because God is with me.

The Question Becomes a Door

Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me” does not sound like entitlement. It sounds like a man overwhelmed by undeserved kindness, admitting what he has wasted and placing his soul in Jesus’ hands. The question is not, “Why did You let this happen to me?” It becomes, “Why have You shown me this much mercy?”

That version of “Why me?” leads somewhere beautiful.

It produces gratitude instead of comparison. It recognizes grace instead of demanding proof. It asks whether the road back to God can become a road marker for somebody else.

One short line from the song carries the mission: “Maybe Lord, I can show someone else.”

That is what Field Notes are.

I cannot repay grace by pretending I earned it. I cannot balance an account with God by suffering enough, working enough, giving enough, building enough, or staying sober enough to make myself deserving. But I can place the story in His hands and allow what I have lived through to become a light for somebody walking the same road.

The question becomes a door.

Why me, Lord?

Why did You keep me alive?

Why did You speak when I was comparing?

Why did You give me nearly a year of clarity after decades of noise?

Why did You let me return after I reopened the door?

Why did You preserve relationships, restore what I had damaged, and keep writing after I thought the page was over?

I do not know every answer.

But I know what I can say next:

Here I am. Why not me? Send me.

Scripture to Carry

“Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?’ And God said, ‘I will be with you.’” — Exodus 3:11–12

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send?’ ... And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’” — Isaiah 6:8

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” — Psalm 13:1

“Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” — Esther 4:14

“Each one should test their own actions ... without comparing themselves to someone else.” — Galatians 6:4

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9

Prayer

Father, You are not afraid of my questions. You have heard every “Why me?” spoken from grief, anger, comparison, fear, depression, and exhaustion. Meet me honestly in the question and keep it from becoming the identity that decides my future.

Forgive me for measuring Your goodness by another person’s money, influence, platform, health, family, or visible success. Forgive me for asking You to increase my influence while refusing to surrender what was already influencing me. Show me what has become a master while I continue calling it a tool.

Bring me back to the last thing You made clear. Give me courage to obey without requiring a new sign, immediate reward, or perfect explanation. Protect me from treating silence as permission to reopen the door You told me to close.

Thank You for every period of clarity, every relationship restored, every chain broken, and every return after recurrence. Remove shame that keeps me hiding, but preserve the humility that keeps me watchful. Surround me with people who will help carry what I cannot safely carry alone.

When I ask, “Who am I?” remind me that You are with me. When I ask, “Why not me?” purify the question until it becomes availability rather than entitlement. When You ask whom You can send, make my life able to answer.

Here I am. My story, influence, ambition, sobriety, weakness, future, and unfinished work are in Your hands. Use what I have survived to help somebody else find the road back to You.

In Jesus’ name, amen.