Totally Unfair

     God has been unfair to me my whole life and I am so glad. Sometimes we Christians, with the best of intentions--to empathize and commiserate with suffering believers, offer the idea that the difficulty happening in their life is undeserved, unfair. Generally in life we reap what we sow. This principle is biblical. But so is the book of Job, one of the earliest written, to show us that there is an unseen spiritual context woven into the events of our lives. I am not God's fairness monitor. The only reason I have any concept of fairness is the glimmer of God's image in my sin distorted soul. Judging God's actions by our standards is like a toddler arguing science with Einstein.

     Here are some examples of the unfair things that have happened in my life:

• God sought and saved me as a teenager, when the fair thing to do would have been to leave me in the personal and church endorsed self-righteousness of Mormonism.
• He provided funds for me to go to Bible college where He also provided a husband better than I deserve.
• God pried our sticky fingers off our home in Billings to move us to western Montana, where we really wanted to be. Though it looked like unfairness, bordering on cruelty, at the time.
• He allowed me to be the stay-at-home mom of three healthy, challenging children, who made me grow up.
• Once again God came through with funds so we could send the above challenges to Christian school.
• My husband works hard, but the generous salary God has provided in our later years is much more than we expected to have or need to live on.
• God unfairly forced us wait a year hunting for a different house, because He had a much better one reserved for us.
• My childhood dreams of travel were driving a truck to some Montana Super 8 and spending more than one night at the hotel. What God unfairly provided was a major upgrade to beautiful hotels in interesting places for weeks at a time.
• Every blessing in my life has been greater than anything I deserved, therefore, totally unfair, and I have never once complained to God about it.

     So it would be totally unfair of me to whine at the God who has been generous and faithful all my life when I am in difficult circumstances. He knows all about it. There is a purpose for both the good and the hard things He permits. I do not want to waste my Christian life looking around to see who got more Kool-Aid in their cup than I did. The last thing I want is fairness. What I want is mercy and mercy is totally unfair.