[498 words]
How many times in your life have you felt or expressed your frustration that life is not fair? Probably every parent has heard these words groaned with varying degrees of grief from their children. God has heard these words many many times, even from adults. Usually these are the words of pain or sorrow or sickness or jealousy or even fear. We see the good fortune of others and feel somehow that we have been deprived of what we deserve!
The scriptures record many heartaches in the lives of men and women. Jacob’s beloved Rachel died in childbirth (Gen. 35:19). Joseph was hated by his family, sold into slavery by his brothers (Gen. 37), and wrongly imprisoned in a foreign land (Gen. 39). David’s own son rose up against him to take his life and kingdom (2 Sam. 15). Job experienced financial ruin, the death of his ten grown children and great physical disease (Job 1,2). No, life is NOT fair.
But amazingly, most of us are usually pretty happy with that state of affairs. We are not blind, or slaves, or living in a country where mud huts are the most common form of housing. We have luxury in food and clothing and health care that is the envy of the world. We travel across the country and around the world with speed and comfort. We have the freedom to choose where we would like to live, where we would like to go and what we would like to do. Hardly any nation or people over the entire course of human history lived as comfortably as we do today! Why should we be so blessed when so many others suffer so much? No! Life is not fair! Our beautiful houses are air conditioned and heated. We have more food than we can eat. We have more clothes than we can wear. We meet with hundreds of Christians each week and sit comfortably on cushioned pews in beautiful buildings to worship God, and still gripe! And yet not once will it even come into our minds to complain to God that it’s unfair that we have been blessed far greater than most of the people who have ever lived upon the face of the planet earth since creation!
Buckets of blessings continue to pour down on us. Many of us are living very comfortable lives in retirement without doing any work at all! Such is unheard of in the history of mankind. The rest of us have jobs whereby we are able to afford many of life’s pleasures. We don’t deserve them. We are no better than those who have gone before us. Men and women died for our blessings; pilgrims, settlers, soldiers, parents, pioneers. Yet the lives we live are so easy by comparison. No, life is not fair. So please, try not to complain so loudly…with money in the bank, closets full of clothes and mouths full of food. It makes us look ridiculous.
Tim Orbison
Maysville church of Christ
Gurley, AL