Credit Given to the Undeserved

It’s late in the evening, and the waiting room in the hospital is full of my family. As we wait for Grandpa to come out of surgery, my grandma and her sister say the same thing: it’s all in God’s hands now. I sit back, baffled by this belief. I don’t say a word, because they are the type of Christians who get offended if you don’t believe in God. A lot of religious people aren’t like this, but some are. Many people I know have similar beliefs that everything happens according to God’s will. I’m not going to say this is entirely wrong, because I have no idea. But doesn’t it seem a bit far-fetched?

People pray to God for a miracle. They thank God for making something happen. Sure, I believe in miracles as far as the definition is concerned—a highly improbable event. If someone has stage four brain cancer and is given three months to live and then survives, that would be considered a miracle in my eyes. Surviving one of the most deadly diseases, the worst case of brain cancer, is something not many have done. The right treatment is hard to find, and the disease takes a toll on your body, killing you even with medicine. Living through that is highly improbable. Who or what made it happen, that’s not as easy to say.

If someone does get cured of the said stage four brain cancer, that’s great. But why would it be due to God saving that person? What makes that one person so special that they’re saved over someone else? If we look elsewhere, worse things happen and to multiple people. There are genocides in foreign countries, and little children do not have enough food, dying of starvation. Things like this happen on a much larger scale but don’t seem to be taken into account when God comes into the picture, even though we acknowledge these scenarios as horrible events. Why does an innocent child die from starvation or malaria in Africa while another child is cured of cancer? It isn’t fair, and it doesn’t make sense.



Aside from the unfairness of God’s power, why is He given credit for something someone else clearly did? Parents will have their child going through a deadly surgery, and when their child comes out, they thank God for saving him. Was God in there performing the surgery? No, I think the surgeon and every other person in the operating room—otherwise known as the O.R.--took the time to carefully save your child. Why are you thanking a God you have no proof is real when the surgeon who just took hours to save your child is right in front of you? Come on, don’t be disrespectful. Sure, most do thank the surgeon, but if they thank God first, then they believe God had everything to do with it. And yeah, if God’s real, he could have helped the surgeon perform the surgery. But how does that add up either?



I plan on being a doctor. I want to help people and take time to make sure they stay alive and healthy. So if I come out of the O.R. after 10 hours and hear you thank God instead of me, I will be furious. One milligram more of anesthesia or one slip of the hand and everything could have changed. The precision of everyone in that operating room helped save your son. Not God. How do you know God wasn’t off somewhere else saving someone? Clearly he doesn’t help everyone.



And then you have the serious religious person who says “God got me here” after graduating college or getting a record label. I’m sorry, I thought you worked hard for that, but okay, God did it. Don’t you think you owe yourself a little more credit? I wouldn’t get a PhD and then thank God for it. I would have worked my butt off to earn that. God didn’t hand it to me. If that were the case, everyone would be a millionaire.



God very well could be real. I can’t prove to you he isn’t, so I don’t know what is right or wrong. If you’re faithful, that’s wonderful. I’m just not like that. But if you’re seriously going to tell me that God is the one saving someone, then I think you need to rethink some things. Because if that’s true, then God is unfair. If I put in effort and time to save a patient when I’m older and to actually get to the point of becoming a doctor, I’m giving myself the credit. Not because I’m selfish, but because it’s the truth. I’ll give myself and everyone else in the O.R. credit for saving patients. Until God personally hands me that PhD I’m looking for, I’ll be thanking myself, my professors, and my parents for getting me there.