How many of you mommas have heard the phrase, "It's not fair!"? How about the amount of times you've heard it?................and what about the times you yourself have said it?
One afternoon after hearing one of my four children exclaim this again in the back seat of the car, I had had enough. I exclaimed back, "You're right, it's not fair! Do you think it was fair for Jesus to die on the cross?! Do you think it was fair for Him to be beaten and spit upon and made fun of like he was for us?! Do you think He deserved that?!
Although my patience had wore thin, and my retort was less than calm- it made a pretty sobering moment. Soon, the roaring waves of emotions began to trickle into just a troubled stream. But, before anyone's focus shifted completely from themselves and their feelings I was prompted with scripture. This time, a bit more calmly I said to my children,
"Do you think that our eyes think it's unfair that our nose can smell?
I bet they are frustrated that the nose can smell such wonderful things like flowers and fresh baked cookies and they can not?- wait, cookies?! That perked their ears.
Do you think our ears think it's unfair that our eyes can see such wonderful things like rainbows and sunrises and it can not?- now, they were all looking at me.
What about our feet? I bet they think it's unfair that they can only move about but not see.
But, each one is part of our body, right? We need all of them together to make up our body or it wouldn't work. We can't see where to go without eyes, we can't hear directions without our ears, and we can't go anywhere without feet.
So children, you are correct- life is not fair.
Each of us are different and that means that we have and experience different things."
Ya'll, I will tell you, this fallen world diligently tries to tell you the opposite. There is a lie, like a resounding gong that tries to tell us that everything should be fair and equal- for YOU. It even entices us to do all we can to obtain that fairness for ourselves. However, there is a huge flaw in that worldly thinking. It misses the very starting point on which it should or even could be built upon. In order for that to work, we would all have to be the same from the beginning.
We would ALL have to be EYES,
ALL have to be EARS,
ALL have to be FEET.
And how then, would anything work? How could we see where to go if we were all ears? How could we go if we were all eyes? Therefore, it misses who we ARE as individuals, who God innately created each one of us to be. Each of us are uniquely designed and created to have vital components to impact God's Kingdom, and each person's role and ability is important and needed as Holy Spirit works through us.
So, when we find ourselves uttering the statement, "it's not fair" we may need to reflect and examine: are we an ear striving desperately to see or an eye trying to will our way into moving and going?
1 Corinthians 12:12, 1 Corinthians 12:14-18, Jeremiah 17:9, 1 John 4:9-10
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