As Matthew the counselor, I've struggled with a couple or personal decisions. Both of those have been around my health. As it turns out, I have a degenerative neurological condition that can impact much of my daily tasks. As a counselor it has only given me more insight and ability to understand those I counsel.
But we'll get back to that. Before we do, I want to define fairness. I'm not going to call on Webster or anyone else. I'm going to define fairness myself according to what we teach as parents and what we live as a society. Fairness means that everybody should get the same results for what they believe to be the same effort. Maybe that's harsh. Maybe not. When God created the world, he made a garden where there were lots of different animals (who didn't seem to eat each other - don't ask me). In that garden, God added some special creatures. He added a creature that He would make to be like him as our children are like us. So, there were some special resemblances to God that say the hyena or the Giraffe didn't have. Then, He gave that special creature a friend and helper. Like the first special creature, she was in some ways like God. Obviously, these two special creatures were the first man and woman. One thing that God gave these special creatures was the ability to choose to love. When your kindergartner brings home a mother's day card, you feel loved, but you also know that the teacher had all 30 kids in the classroom do the same thing. When your teen aged daughter knows you cook dinner when you get home but surprises you with a surprisingly well cooked meal with all the trimmings. That, well that was a choice to love. You see, there are MANY ways that we are like God, but that is the most important one, the ability to CHOOSE to love. So, why shouldn't these special creatures get some special treatment? What very very important thing comes with the ability to choose to love? The ability to choose NOT to love. This is the key to the WHOLE thing. I'm not going to go into a whole dissertation of all the aspects of creation and sin. But the fact is this. When we say, it's not fair, we're missing the point. For whatever reason, this is a broken world with germs and cancers and immune systems gone awry. It's a broken world. We try to protect our kids from this as long as we can. We teach them how to play fair and obey the rules. And they react with righteous indignation when someone cheats. We even vaccinate our kids. We try SO hard. We agonize over ever little decision, even what they wear to school. But at some point, it all blows up in our faces. At some point fairness fails. At some point we can't go talk to the principal or even beat up the other parent. At some point some giant comes along that we didn't even see coming. Car accidents, job losses, etc., etc. Then we tell our kids to be honest while we are planning on hiding details from our bosses. We tell the officer that the other car ran the red light, when we know full well that we did too. We go around living our lives, "ALMOST RIGHT." But at the end of the day, bad, horrible, detestable things happen to people we think don't deserve it. Kids get cancer. Lifelong ministers die of brain tumors. Single moms lose their homes to floods and tornadoes. Do I need to continue? There is no fair. God never promised fair. God did promise that there would be a return to a peaceful world where all could live with Him. Sign me up please. That said, I appreciate all the love and sympathy from everyone who thinks my current situation isn't fair either.
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AuthorRev. Matthew Hogan is a Certified Temperament Pastoral Counselor, Licensed Pastoral Counselor and is a Professional Clinical Member of the National Christian Counselors Association Archives
March 2021
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