The Question We're Really Asking

It is common these days to hear some form of the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" This question usually assumes that we know who the good people are and what defines something as "bad." My hunch is that God sees some of this a tad bit differently than we do, but I'll leave that point for some other day.

Meanwhile, I find it interesting, that in the Bible times, people more often asked the question in reverse, "Why do good things happen to bad people?" You can check out Psalm 73 and Jeremiah 12:1-2 for a couple examples of this.

From whichever direction you come at it, I think that the deeper question we're asking--both now and through the ages--is, "Why isn't life fair?" Whether it is the conundrum of the wicked prospering or the righteous facing tragedy, either way what we're really grappling with is the fairness of it all.

I've often been fascinated by how naturally the fairness question arises from the lips of small children. Kids too young to articulate any significant morals, values or ethics have an innate sense of fairness. Don't they? How many times a day is it shouted on some playground, "That's not fair!" Even during diaper days, a child who can't yet say the word seems to have an awareness of injustice. When big sister gets some privilege the little tike doesn't get, it's not just jealousy that arises within him. Somewhere early and deep in the human heart is this demand for fairness, and if little "scream-his-lungs-out" feels he just got ripped off, he's going to let you and the whole world within earshot know.

We grow up (hopefully) and (again, hopefully) learn to handle our disappointment a little more maturely, but the "fairness awareness" stays high. Somehow, for some reason, we expect life to be fair and it ticks us off when it's not. We expect our court systems to be fair, and it angers us if they don't appear to be so. We expect the same from our police officers and the prices we pay in the store and the reporting we hear on the news. It shows up in a hundred ways in our lives, many of them far more personal and emotional. When a co-worker gets an advancement we were by-passed for, when someone gets a financial break we couldn't get, when someone gets recognized while we get overlooked, when someone gets chosen "from the inside" and we didn't even have a chance to apply…you get the idea, fairness frustrations are all around us.

Where did we get the sense that life should be fair? Where does this come from?

Joanna and I always worked at fairness in parenting. We'd keep track of how many presents each child would be getting for Christmas and how much money we spent on their birthdays so there would be a sense of equality. Many a Christmas Eve was spent shopping for the last gift because a kid was one short of having the same as the others. I'd argue that it is good to try to lead with fairness if you are a parent, teacher, government official, employer or in some other way impacting people's lives on a regular basis. Fairness is a good thing to strive for.

But I ask it again. Where did we get the idea that life in this world should be fair? Philosophically I would argue that this is one more evidence for the existence of God and that we were created in his image. The fact that you don't need to teach a child about fairness, and that this is a universal characteristic, points to the possibility that there really is a supreme moral being who has instilled some of His nature into the human spirit. But that's really not my point today.

What I do want to say today is this:
1) When we ask a question, we sometimes stop too soon. We don't dig down enough layers to consider, "What am I really asking?" Questions should be viewed as quests to take our thinking and our faith to deeper places. If one question leads to one or two more, rather than being frustrated, be grateful that perhaps you are getting closer to the core issue.

2) Fairness thinking leads to equation making. Perhaps I just confused you. Let me say it differently. When I assume that life is fair, I assume that I can determine outcomes. For example, if this world were fair, good things would always happen to good people. We could count on it like a formula. Wicked people would never prosper. Godly people would always get ahead. If we did the right things raising our kids they would turn out perfectly. Formulas. Equations. They don't work very well, do they?

3) The reason formulas don't work well is because this world isn't fair. We'll probably have less anxiety in life if we quit demanding of this world something it can't consistently give.

I'll attempt to write more on this in the days or weeks to come, but we'll call that enough for today…with one exception. I have a question to ask you which, like we talked about in Point One, takes this discussion one layer deeper: Is God fair?

I won't attempt an answer at that now, but I will say this, "He is good. You can trust Him."

May He give you the grace to keep your head up in an up-side-down world,
John