Life's Not Fair!
"Life's not fair!" I hear this from my sixteen year old daughter almost everyday. She thinks that if life were fair, she would get to do pretty much anything she wanted. In fact, she says that, as an adult, I get to do anything I want. :chuckle: Most, if not all, parents go through something similar to this with their own teenagers. And, if they don't, surely they must remember saying it themselves when they were teenagers.
Sometimes, even as an adult, I want to cry out, "It's not fair!" to my Father. Right after I turned thirty, my husband passed away, leaving me with a nine year old daughter to raise alone. At the time, I didn't think that was fair. Hearing Christians tell me, "It's all God's plan for you," didn't help much either. I didn't know how I was going to be able to support my daughter and continue homeschooling her, as I had done before my husband passed away. I knew that our lives were turned upside down and about to get even more messed up.
That was about seven years ago. Through these years, I've come to realize that I'm fine. Although I miss my husband, dreadfully, I am making it. Although we had to move from California to Indiana, my daughter and I are able to survive quite well on my husband's retirement. I am even able to continue homeschooling.
You see, God never promise us, as Christians, that life would be fair. He never promised us lives without troubles. In fact, we are warned that the opposite will occur in Matthew 10:22 ("And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved."). All through the Bible, we can see that people who worship God are blessed significantly. Yet, most of these people experience periods of suffering (Job, for instance).
What God promises us is that if we believe in Him and serve Him, we will have eternal life. Hmmm. I think that's a more than fair trade. I would rather have an eternity with Him than to have a short life (77 - 81, according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy) of everything "being fair."
E. L. Benz
1/10/06
