Having Faith When Life Isn’t Fair
A guy once said to me, “I can’t make sense out of life. You do your best. You trust that God will work everything out. Then life falls apart anyway. It seems like what I do makes no difference.”
I understood his frustration. I’ve felt the same way at times. Believing that I’ve covered all the bases, I’ve found myself sometimes bewildered, sometimes depressed, and sometimes even feeling resentment toward God when things didn’t unfold as I expected. We love God, spend time with Him, have no sin in our life, do everything right, and suddenly – Boom! Something goes terribly wrong, and some catastrophe hits us. It leaves us asking ourselves where is God in all of this? This isn’t fair! We often expect life to fit within our sense of human justice, human fairness, but it often doesn’t work out that way.
How do we get through such an unpredictable life? How do we remain at peace in a world where everything can suddenly change in a moment? Martin Luther embraced a verse that answers that question. It is the verse that ushered in the Reformation. “The righteous will live by faith.” Galatians 3:11b (NIV)
It’s that simple. We must choose to walk by faith in God.
We know that our heavenly Father is a loving God, so nothing happens in our lives that He doesn’t permit. He is a sovereign God, so nothing happens that He can’t control. He is an omniscient God, so nothing happens that He didn’t already know about in advance. The question is: Will we trust Him?
Some Christians think faith means if we believe hard enough, things will turn out the way we want. Their faith is in faith. They think If I just believe hard enough, hope long enough, will it to be strong enough, God will see my faith and He will bring about what I need to happen. It’s an approach to problems that combines a mix of secular positive thinking with a religious flair. It sounds good and feels good (when it works out in my favour), but it’s anything but biblical.
Authentic biblical faith is not intense, positive thinking that is intended to produce a certain outcome.
Biblical faith means that we trust in God. Period. Not in a particular result. Not in a happy ending. Faith simply means that we trust Him, knowing that whatever the outcome may be, life will still be okay because He is in control.
Are you facing situations that make no sense? If so, relax. God is in control. He loves you and will always work all things in your life for good. Don’t mistake wishful thinking for biblical truth. Faith means that we rest in the fact that we are one with Christ – that Abba is our Father who loves us and controls it all. The Holy Spirit will sustain us no matter what happens.
“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13 (NASB)
Your life isn’t a result of cause and effect, like a row of dominos. Your life is in Christ. He has it all planned already. So let go of your attempt to figure out your life and attempts to control your own destiny, and trust Him. In God’s economy, the process is just as, or more, important than the destination. So often we just want to get to the end and want to skip all the hard going in the middle of the journey. What we need to know is that it’s in the hardship of the journey where God does His deepest work in us. It’s the most important part….don’t skip it.
God does not fit into our sense of fairness. There are many things in life that are not fair. You will just frustrate yourself trying to fit God into fairness. The Bible says that God is a ‘Just’ God.
“The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.” Deuteronomy 32:4 (NASB)
Justice and fairness have two different meanings. Justice originates with God. What God says is right IS right. Fairness is a human word – it involves comparing one situation with another. Atheists’ will argue that God does not exist by asking questions like, ‘How could a loving God allow 2 kids in Columbine a few years ago to open fire in a public school killing 13 and injuring 21 other innocent people?’ ‘How could a loving God allow over 3,000 innocent people to be murdered in 9/11?’ ‘How could a loving God allow over 6,000,000 Jews to be murdered in the Holocaust?’
God does not interfere with peoples’ free will. He created us with free will, and He never takes it from us. We have a free will to love God, or not, to respond to His love for us, or not. My free will has also enabled me to behave in any way that I want to.
Life is NOT fair. That’s precisely why we need Jesus.
As Believers, Jesus gives us peace for the things we do not understand. He gives us rest for the things that cause us anxiety and assurance for the things that cause us to doubt. Our faith must be in God, and Him alone, not in the favourable outcome of our prayers. When our faith is in God alone, then our lives are in a place where the fruit of the Holy Spirit can and will grow. The most joyous and peaceful Christians you will find are those who have been through the most disturbing circumstances you can imagine and yet have placed their faith in Christ.