Letting Go of “Fair” (for The Glorious Table)

“It’s not fair.”

I can’t even begin to count how many times those words have crossed my lips. Or the lips of my children. I think there’s something in the human condition that makes us crave this idea of fair. After all, if you look at the story of Cain and Abel, wasn’t Cain motivated, at least in part, by a feeling that it wasn’t fair of God to accept Abel’s offering and not his? Even Jesus’ disciples weren’t immune to grousing about perceived unfairness. In John 21:20-21, we see Peter asking about the fate of another disciple and Jesus responds in verse 22 by asking, “What is that to you?”

When I was growing up, and I’d see my sister allowed to do something I wasn’t, or getting something I didn’t, and I complained to my mother, very often she’d give me a solemn look and ask, “What is that to you, Peter?” I hated it. But I can look back now and see the wisdom of her response. She didn’t engage in the argument I was trying to have. She didn’t fall back on the old reliable, “Life’s not fair.” (Even though it isn’t.) Instead, she reminded me Jesus himself never promised us fair. For the longest time, I thought I’d absorbed that lesson. I got out of the habit of complaining when fair didn’t happen.

Until life got hard. (Hop on over to The Glorious Table to read the rest of this post.)