on fairness

“It’s not fair!” he declares.

“What’s not fair?” I ask.

“I want someone to play with me and everyone wants to play something else,” he grumbles.

I ponder how this problem fits into the word “fair”.

“What do you think ‘fair’ means?” I ask.

He hesitates, and then says, “Fair means I get what I want.”

And there it is.

My son and I are suddenly back in the garden, facing mankind’s greatest moment of failure. Then, as now, our hearts are sure that what we want and what we deserve are the same thing.

It’s funny that I never hear the outcry for fairness from a child who has gotten more than his siblings.

Nor does my own heart cry out very often at the unfairness of being born a free woman in a country that values education, sanitary water, and with so many opportunities to advance in society.

Rarely do we demand that the increase we have not earned or the blessings we do not deserve be taken away and given to others

We don’t want fairness. We want our own way.

The ironic part of it all is that the unfairest occurrence in the history of the world was done so that we could be delivered from that selfishness.

Unfairly accused and unjustly executed, on the cross Jesus gave us what we deserved least and needed most.

Oh, how unfair it is that we have been loved so much!

What an unfair request God asks of us, to give away this love by placing others above ourselves.

How unjust and undeserved that He blesses us with more of Himself when we obey Him and take the lowest place.

I hug my son, who wants a good thing: to be loved by his brothers. I tell him “fair” has little to do with his predicament. I suggest some solutions to his problem that elevate the hearts of those around him, and he goes back and try to work it out.

I know he still doesn’t understand how truly unfair his life is. The weight of grace has yet to hang fully upon his consciousness.

Someday God will open his eyes and he will see.

Until that day, I remind my children to love others first and to look for ways to be a peacemaker. I hold up the unfair love of God before my own crooked heart. I remember that the idea of fairness is a tricky one, prone to leading us into selfishness.

As I look around my comfortable house, full of love and peace, I say a prayer of thanks to the unfair God, who chose to be the greatest Peacemaker of all.

Long live unfairness.