God Isn't Fair...

Yesterday when I was at the gym, I glanced up at one of the TV screens and saw a national talk show in progress. I began reading the closed captioning words mid-way through the talk, but it wasn’t difficult to pick up on the gist of the conversation: the four ladies were discussing God and His role in our lives. Controversy sparked as different opinions were stirred into the mix, but what caught my attention more than anything was when one of the ladies spoke words to the effect that even though the tsunami hadn’t touched their lives individually, it had touched thousands of others. She said a God who could let that happen must not be paying attention to everything, and if he was, he wasn’t doing a very good job. I have certainly heard sentiments like this expressed before, but somehow as I read the words and studied her face as she spoke them, something in my heart broke because I sensed that she and so many others believe that with all of their hearts. I sensed that if it was all boiled down, what she was expressing was a belief that God is not fair, so he cannot be good. I ached with sadness because I saw that the argument was logical, yet it is so far from the truth that resonates in my heart!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about God and fairness and logic. Of course, initially it didn’t seem “fair” to me that Poppy isn’t going to have a chance to live, and it didn’t seem “fair” that I have to endure 9 months of being pregnant without reaping the lifetime of joy a child brings. The list goes on, but I have realized that this is a dangerous road to let my mind start to wander down. The reality of the situation is that God is not fair, and nowhere in the Bible does He make any promises to be so. The problem is, I sometimes confuse fairness and justness by seeing them as synonymous. But they aren’t. The other thing I’ve spent a good deal of time pondering is “logic.” What has become abundantly obvious is that most things that I would consider logical, God does not. It’s hard for me to see the logic in creating a child whose entire system is at war with itself. It doesn’t seem logical that God give us a child who can’t live when we want her so badly, while he gives healthy children to parents who abort them. So, the second reality I’ve embraced is God’s mind is so far above mine, that I will never be able to comprehend Him. I think a verse that sums it all up is found in I Corinthians 1:25, and it says “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom…”

The thing is, God doesn’t operate under feeble human frameworks of fairness or logic. Instead, He works in ways that defy our understanding, and He bring glory to Himself in ways I could never have imagined. That is why I have found such wonderful comfort in the verse from I Corinthians 1:27 which states “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.” I don’t think anyone can deny that Poppy is one of the “weak things of the world.” We were even encouraged by the “wise of this world” (the high-risk pregnancy specialist) to have her terminated immediately. But I am confident with everything in me that God is going to use her, and her frailness is going to be the very thing He is going to use to do amazing things. Does it make sense? Absolutely not. But that very fact makes me love God more.

To sum it all up, God isn’t fair, but He is so good! He allows us to go through pain, and He allows the world to suffer tragedy, but He has sent us Jesus. He has given us hope. He has promised to love us, stand by us, and never leave us. There are many things about God that I will never understand, but one thing I do know is that He is good, and for me, that is enough. My prayer is that if there is anyone out there who is reading this and is struggling to make sense of the things in this world, they will allow themselves to abandon “logic” for a moment and instead allow God to breathe into them the realness of His love.