Life is unfair but GOD is GOOD

Do all of us have something to thank God for? We find ourselves spread across different strata in life – physically, economically, intellectually, and so on. Some are beautiful, attracting a second look while some are ugly. Some have so much that they splurge, not knowing how to use their money, while some have nothing or so little that they struggle to make both ends meet. Some are brilliant in thought and in expression while some just don’t seem capable of thinking new or big. Does each one of us, no matter which side we fall off the dividing line, have something to thank God for?

Some suggest that a positive attitude is required to feel gratitude towards God. When looking at a cup that has some water in it, while one calls the cup as half-full and feels thankful for what he has, another may call the cup as half-empty and complain for not having enough. In the same way, while looking at a rose, one may appreciate the richness of its color or the sweetness of its scent while another may be distracted by the presence of thorns all around. They ask us how we see God, when we look back at our life? Do we remember him for all the good things that we have received -- health, education, profession, family, income, etc., or do we complain that we did not receive sufficient goodness? It is true that the way one looks at the cup or the rose, colors his emotions, but the emptiness and the thorns are very much reality. Does one always have to look at someone less privileged to feel thankful to God?

Let’s face it – Life is unfair! While one has no logical reason to expect why one should have been born in a wealthier family or with greater beauty or intellect, one can’t resisting comparing with someone more fortunate (lucky?), who equally has no reason and has yet been gifted with greater wealth and beauty. Now wait a minute! Gifted by whom? That is when one starts attributing this unfairness to God. If God is sovereign and has absolute control over circumstances, why does he choke one with all goodness while depriving another of even the basic necessities. We tend to expect that if God has been fair, life too would have been fair. We conclude that life is unfair and therefore God too is.

Let us look at God and try to figure out if he is fair or unfair. He has revealed himself through his word and through his own Son who became flesh 2000 years ago, and what do we find? Jesus’ disciples were emphatic in reiterating that God shows no favoritism. Peter told a group of people in Cornelius’ house, considered gentiles by the Jews, “I realize now how true it is that God does not show favoritism" (Acts 1o:34). Paul wrote to the church in Rome that “God does not show favoritism" (Rom 2:11) and to the church is Ephesus that “He who is [everyone’s] master is in heaven and there is no favoritism with him" (Eph 6:9). If this is what the disciples found and had to say, what do we see directly from Jesus’ own life on earth?

While no one could choose the family he would be born into, God who could do for his own Son when sending him into the world, chose the family of a poor carpenter. Can we be sure that Joseph was a poor carpenter and not a rich one? While the rich sacrificed a lamb as offering, Joseph could only offer a dove that was a poor man’s sacrifice. While the Roman imperialists who ruled the Jews in Jesus’ time, rode on horses as they demonstrated their power to the world, Jesus chose to ride on a donkey while being greeted as Saviour. He associated himself with fishermen and social outcasts such as the Samaritans and Tax-collectors.

At a time, when God gave the civil rules to the country of Israel, his objective was that “there should be no poor among [them]” (Deu 15:4). He commanded them to “not take advantage of a widow or an orphan” and warned them of punishment if they did (Ex 22:22). Moses talked loftily about God in the following words: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien” (Deu 10:18). King David, Israel’s most cherished King, had realized this and sang (Ps 146:7-9) :

  "He upholds the cause of the oppressed
   and gives food to the hungry.
   The Lord sets prisoners free,
   the Lord gives sight to the blind,
   the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down . .
   the Lord watches over the alien
   and sustains the fatherless and the widow”

Elsewhere, he called God, “a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows” (Ps 68:5).

If God is good, how do poverty, sickness and death rule the day? If God’s desire is to see poverty removed, sickness healed and families restored, how did all these come here in the first place? God made man in his own image as a free being. The moment man decided to be his own God and not obey his creator, sin entered the world. Fallen man is depraved and has become very much unlike God. While God is love, man is full of hatred causing violence and making many widows and orphans. While God is selfless, giving himself for us on the cross, man is selfish, hoarding and accumulating, leaving sections of the society poor. Socialism, Communism, Capitalism have all failed to combat life's unfairness.  Nature itself has fallen along with him leading to diseases and death.

But if God is certainly a father to the fatherless, and a defender of widows, we wonder why the world still finds injustice meted out to the weaker ones in society – the orphans, widows, immigrants and all who are poor? Why is God not wiping out everyone who does injustice? The hard truth is that there will be no one left on earth if he were to do so. God is therefore going through a slower process of working inside out. Today, he comes to live inside us through his Holy Spirit to renew us and transform us. He gives us the strength to bear the unfairness of life, so that together with Paul we may also say "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (2 Cor 4:16).  Great many renewed people have then been transformed to wage war against illiteracy, poverty, suffering :

Mother Teresa who founded Nirmal Hriday for the destitute and the dying of Calcutta;

Dame Cicely Saunders who founded the modern hospice movement that helps people die with dignity and without pain;

Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon whose program Operation Smile has repaired facial deformities on more than thirty-six thousand children;

Millard Fuller who founded Habitat for Humanity with the belief that every person on earth deserves a decent place to live;

Dr.Paul Brand who inspired several medical missionaries through his work with leprosy patients;

and countless others who did what they did because they were being obedient to Jesus.

Would we realize today, how depraved we are and thank God for not snuffing us out, from impatience, but waiting to live through us to not just transform us but also uplift a needy and impoverished world!