If she heard it once, my mother must have heard it a thousand times: “It’s not fair!” The older children stopped at the country store for candy on the way home from school, but the “baby” who was still at home didn’t get any. “It’s not fair!” The boys got new shoes in September because, having gone barefooted all summer, they had outgrown the old ones. “It’s not fair!” The younger children, attending a city school as they grew up, took music lessons and played on sports teams. “It’s not fair!”
Life is just full of inequities, isn’t it? And perhaps you heard, as I often did, “No one promised you that life would be fair.” Small comfort, right? It took me many years to realize that my mother was quite correct, only at a far greater level than the administration of our family affairs. The high ideals of our founding fathers simply do not work everywhere. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”) Because we are, for the most part, a free people, educated and well-fed, it is easy for us to believe these are indeed inalienable; we think, “God gave me the right to have them, and I am going to have them.”
There is a problem with Jefferson’s philosophy, as I see it. It isn’t entirely Scriptural. When Jesus talked about life, He did not talk about having the “right” to living your life. He used terms like “laying down your life,” “taking up your cross,” and even “don’t fear those who can kill the body.” When He talked about liberty, He said, “If the Son makes you free, you’ll be free indeed.” And the Apostle Paul added, “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.” (Romans 6:16 NLT) According to that, we have less freedom (or more, depending on where our allegiance is) than we might think.
And the pursuit of happiness is mostly a misnamed quest. It is elusive when it is the object of a chase. Genuine happiness doesn’t usually come in great big packages marked wealth or top-of-the-ladder success or passionate romance or elite education. “Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts in You [leaning and believing on You, committing all and confidently looking to You, and that without fear or misgiving]! (Psalm 84:12 AMP) Happiness very often comes in simple ways: coaxing the baby’s first smile, lying down at night on fresh-washed sheets, having coffee with a good friend, or making something grow. Charles Schultz was right—“Happiness is a warm puppy.”
In our society, this simple, un-Jeffersonian view of life may not seem “fair.” And maybe it isn’t. But the Christian faith declares unequivocally and without apology, “God is fair.” After all was said and done, that’s what Job decided too, “God is fair.” I don’t understand starving children and terrorist bombings and refugee camps and weather-related devastation. But of this I am sure: God is fair. “Fair” doesn’t always mean everything everywhere is “the same.” But He is trustworthy. I have proved Him during financial crisis, in emotional trauma, in physical weakness. He is fair. Ultimately fair.
MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)
Scripture marked NLT is taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved. Scripture marked AMP is from the Amplified Bible
Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
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