When Life Isn't Fair

“Don’t I have the right to gripe?  Can’t I complain just a little?  I mean, after all, I deserve better, don’t I?  I work just as hard as the next guy.  Why do I have to plaster a fake smile on my face and act like everything is okay?  Maybe I would like for something to go right in my life for a change.”  I heard these words from a person in line at the grocery store.  She was talking on her cell phone.  I don’t know who she was talking to.  I just know that she was very indignant over the injustices of her life.

I have to admit, I’ve been there before.  There have been days when I’ve questioned the fairness and the equity of life.  As Americans, we’ve become brainwashed into thinking that we deserve everything and if we don’t have what we want, then somebody has cheated us out of it.  The plain fact is we don’t deserve anything.  I know that this is going to rub some of my readers the wrong way, but it’s the truth, as I see it.  Our western culture has now raised an entire generation who believe that life is all about entitlements.  We’ve come a far cry from life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When I was growing up, I remember my dad saying, “Life isn’t fair.”  I used to get so angry when he'd say that.  If you live right and work hard, life should be fair.  But the Scriptures tell us that “the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.”  There is a story in Matthew 20:1-16 about some workers in a field who had toiled all day and others who came towards the end of the day.  They were all paid the same amount of money.  The workers who had started early in the day felt cheated and that it wasn’t fair for the late comers to be paid the same amount.  But they had made an agreement with the landowner for how much they would be paid.  He didn’t say that he would pay any who came later, less wages.

So, what do we deserve?  There are so many around the world who don’t even have human dignity, food or a roof over their head.  There are innocents who have suffered at the hands of abusers who we will never hear about or know of.  When I think of them, I know that I have riches and blessings beyond measure.  As believers, we serve a God who served us.  He gave all for us.  We are worth Jesus, to Him. 

In Christ, our lives should be the opposite of what our culture and society tells us it should be.  If you want to see Jesus, go to where the hurting and the broken are.  That’s where you’ll find Him.  The Church is supposed to be a servant.  We are called to take care of the widows and the orphans and the sick and the lame.  The government is not called to do this.  They are called to provide basic protection, simple education and maintain infrastructure and a justice system.  We are called to love!  We are meant to be Jesus hands and feet on this earth.  We are commissioned to “go ye into all the world.”

So, while sometimes, life doesn’t seem fair and we don’t always get our way, we are richly blessed and have much to take to a hurt and dying world.   We have a message of hope and we have the means to offer that hope in the form of love.  That love can look like different things to different people.  It might look like food.  It might look like blankets.  It might look like assistance with the legal system.  It could look like a hug and a prayer.  Maybe it’s helping an abused child or a battered woman get to safety.  But it’s all love and it’s the high calling of all believers everywhere.  Can you see those in your world who could use a hand up? Are there hurting and broken people who you can reach out to?  I would challenge each of us to be Jesus hands and feet, wherever we go and impact the world for the Kingdom!

From His Lap,

Finding Significance

Significance...we all long for it.  It's what give us purpose, importance, meaning.  We want significance with our parents, our siblings, our spouses, our children, our friends, co-workers.  To me, the opposite of significance is loneliness, worthlessness, and feeling lost...like a small child, alone on a busy street. There are so many souls who don't have a loving place where their story begins.  Their core is empty because the people who should be filling it have let them down.  When we don't have significance, we don't have hope.  And when we don't have hope, no life can be found in us.

When we don't have that anchor of belonging and acceptance, I believe that is the tipping point where we see people begin to act out, to rebel, to question everything in their existence.  How can we find significance?  How can we have a sense of belonging and joy if the people we crave significance from are absent or abusive or self righteous?

There is one who gave it all for you.  He paid the price and sacrificed His very life.  He bore the lashes, hung on the cross, carried your sin, sickness and disease on His body because you were worth it to Him.  That kind of love takes away loneliness, worthlessness and being lost.  He can take the place of those who have let you down, abused you and left you.  You are significant to Him.  "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down His life for His friends." John 15:13

My friend, you have no greater love than the love of Jesus.  You have no greater significance than you do in Him.  If man has let you down, turn to the one who will never leave you nor forsake you.  Give your heart to the one who knows every hard place you've been to and through.  He will fill that void in your heart with hope and joy.  Let Him settle in your heart, once and for all, that you are worth dying for.  Your story can begin anew with your heart full of purpose, importance and meaning.

Listen to this testimony by the rapper Lecrae.  He found significance and you can too!  (You can turn off my music player to the right in order to hear the video)




From His Lap,