Why Ask "Why Me?"?

 After President Nelson and Elder Cook spoke of the new church meeting schedule and related topics, President M. Joseph Brough, Second Counselor in the Young Men General Presidency, spoke about doing hard things.

Frequently, our first reaction to hard things is “Why me?” Asking why, however, never takes away the hard thing. The Lord requires that we overcome challenges, and He has indicated “that all these things shall give [us] experience, and shall be for [our] good.”

Asking "Why me?" is rather pointless. For one thing, as President Brough said, it doesn't make our challenges go away. For another thing, the answer is simple: Because we're human. Being human, experiencing trials, and facing hard things are all (thankfully temporary) parts of God's eternal plan for us. As President Brough would say later in his talk, "Everyone faces hard things." If the question is "Why do I have to face hardship?", the answer is "Because everybody does."

However, sometimes when we ask "Why me?", what we are really asking is why we had to face this particular trial, as opposed to some other, less challenging one. But if we reflect on the infinite wisdom and love of God, the answer becomes clear enough. Often, the trials we face are exactly the trials that we need to face. God knows what's best for us, including which challenges would best help us grow. And when our trials aren't direct acts of God, they are often the result of a poor use of agency, in which cases, God often respects our agency and that of others and lets the consequences follow.

Whatever their cause, our trials are often tailored by God to fit our needs. That, or we get tailored by God to fit the challenges that are ahead of us. Either way, we and our trials are often perfect fits for each other, and we have God to thank for that.

We face challenges because everybody has to, and, thanks to God's influence, the challenges we end up facing are often the perfect challenges for us.