Based on class discussion...
Life is fair? Some would say so. Things all balance out in the end and despite the number of heartaches that one might have, the number of times that your heart will surge with joy will soon enough equal. I'm pretty sure I used to think like that. Despite my family back ground and any struggle that I might be facing, I was not a third world kid. I knew where my next meal was coming from and I had a roof over my head. In fact I had so much more. The idea then, picking up Yancey's book, 'Disappointment with God' that one indeed, could be disappointed with God was completely foreign.
Is life really a balancing act? That when we get to the end of it, all things are even? Maybe if you live to 90... Or maybe if you buy into reincarnation. But what about those whose lives are taken early? In war, famine, accident, or foul play? They don't fit the pattern.
I don't think that life is fair. The next statement that many make is 'but God is fair'. God won't give you more than you can handle. I learned of two young children aged 5 and 8 who lost their mother to suicide 6 months ago. Now, I have battled with suicide and battled with depression, but I not been in a place so dark yet that the love of two children was not enough to bring me through. This woman obviously was. Did God get it wrong? Did he give her more than she could handle. It seems she thought so. Another family in my church has a multiple handicapped son who is now an adult. The wife has contracted a muscular disease which is slowly destroying her muscles. Now after years of service to their son they were planning a trip home to England. The first and last chance to return home in 40 years. A few days before the flight, the husband had a heart attack and was hospitalised. They can no longer go on their pilgrimage home. Is God fair?
In desperation to try and understand, in our longing for a loving God, we brush over these questions because they take God outside the box in which we put him. Did anyone tell you when you signed up for this journey of faith that sometimes God wouldn't make sense? That sometimes He would do things or allow things to happen that in our understanding are wrong? Don't get me wrong, there are days I long for a God who is more like a fairy godmother than an all powerful, ever present, all knowing God. But He doesn't seem to want to come to the party on that one. I still don't understand what God was trying to prove with Job, except that maybe (just like when we discipline a child) He sees a bigger picture than we do.
There is another reason that I don't think God is fair.
He loves me. He loves me extravagantly. He loves me to the point of sending his own son, himself, to death. Not just the physical death that we think of but the separation from the trinity. The mystery of relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit that are somehow one. Jesus was separated from this at the cross. That is a pain we will never understand.
It is not fair that He loves me this way. It is not justice for I know my own heart. It is not fair that He loves me this way.
So what, then, can you say to someone in pain? What does this family hold on to? In the murkiest depths of human experience, what does our God have to say about fairness?
"My child, I have walked the path before you and I will light the way."
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How do we know what is fair?
Ideally, we take in all the facts, look at motivations, the pros and cons that accompany a decision and/or situation, the people involved... The thing is is that when we look at the fairness of a situation we see the past and we see the now - we have no ability to see into the future. Given the information that we find out, then we make a judgement to the best of our ability.
But who can really, honestly, say they see the full picture of what happens in life, in the now or what has happened in the past?
We can't see heart attitudes? We can't see motivations? We don't see how what is happening to us today could help us/others in the future...
What is wacked out in our two-legged mentality is that we see the hurt in our lives as being "bad". All negative with very little redeeming value. But it can't be so.
We talk alot about fellowship in church..."Yeah, Lord, we thank you for the fellowship we're having..." but the interesting thing is that the only time fellowship was EVER talked about by Paul was in the context of suffering.
There's gotta be more to pain than we see...
Think of Jesus. Think of the violence Jesus endured on the cross. If all hurt were "bad" (aka unvaluable, unnecessary, destructive) then Jesus' violent death on the cross would have little to do with my own life; but it has everything to do with my own.
The pain that he endured was just as Tere said - an act of love. He didn't endure the pain unwillingly, he walked towards death because He wanted to know me and that's just too much to write in a little blurb.
For me, to follow Jesus must involve pain. It must involve death in some part of my life. I mean, why else would he say, "He who loses his life, gains it?" or "Take up your cross and follow me..." (aka. walk towards your death girl!) I think he knew that there was more to the journey through pain and death into life than I can understand.
I want to hash things out and find out if "situations" are fair or not, but I wasn't created to be a judge of all things going on on this little green planet. I was custom made to know and enjoy God.
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