Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Fairness

My first carryover post from my old blog.

What is fair?  How do we define fairness?  How do we know if something is fair?  Usually, the issue of fairness comes up when somebody else is getting something we think that we deserve as well.  Chances are,  you've experienced that in life at least one, even if it was over something trivial.

What if it wasn't something trivial?  What if it was something that really is "a big deal."  "Why did I get hurt?"  "Why did that person have to die?"  "Why did that bad man do that to that good girl?"  "If God and heaven and hell are real, why would I go to hell if I'm a good person?"  These are all profound, deep questions about fairness.  One usually argues that none of those things sounds fair.  In most cases, that's probably true.  On this side of forever, bad things do happen to good people.  This is a sad reality of the world we live in. 

Honestly, I can't really answer the question of why bad things happen to good people, because I don't truly know the answer.  Sometimes, maybe it's because there are bad people in the world.  People have their own free will to do whatever they please, and sometimes, it is not for good.  Even when somebody seems t oget away with something, I don't think they get away with it for eternity.  I think that they eventually get what is coming to them.  Sometimes we cry out to God and ask how he could be so unfair?  This is often the greatest question when it comes to fairness.  How could God be fair? 

Honestly, I don't fully comprehend this either.  I have seen many things that don't make sense to me.  There are a few things that I do try to keep in mind though.  First off, I try to remember that my standards of fairness may not be the same standards that God would use.  Because, you see, we all have our own standards of what is fair, and if God is God, then I would think that God would have the ultimate, all-knowing standards.  I can't look at true fairness through the lens of my life, I have to look through the lens of God, and that is something that I cannot even begin to truly understand.  Even with that lens, my human eyesight is still too poor.  The other thing I try to keep in mind is that while I believe on the other side of forever that things are perfect, on this side, they are not.  I believe it was menat to be, but that things got screwed up somewhere along the way, and things changed.  But that is a discussion for another blog.

As long as we're on this side of forever, things that don't seem right or fair are going to happen.  The first question is, "Whose standards of fair are you using?"  The real question though, is how are you going to respond?

There is a LOT more that can be said on this issue, and I only just barely touched on it, but I think I'll leave this post for now, and maybe come back to it more later.  But at least maybe it's started you thinking.

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