The idea of fairness comes from when we’re really little. As our minds grow, “fair” means different things.  To a toddler, it means they get their own way.  To an elementary school child, it often means everyone is treated the same. As we get older, we develop a sense of right and wrong that helps us define fairness.

When people say “life isn’t fair,” why kind of fairness are they talking about?  And, is there a solution; a way to make life fair?  In fact, what is fair?

First, since “fairness” means different things to different people, those who say “It’s not “fair” can mean different things, too.

One kind of “It’s not fair” complaint is because someone did something wrong; let’s say that they cheated you out of some money.  That’s true – it isn’t fair.  Cheating is wrong.  However, we also see that justice will be served. The Bible promises that the wicked will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.  It also promises a place, called heaven, where there will be no pain, no suffering, no sin at all.

“Okay, great,” you might say. “But, what about fairness here?”  Well, it’s true, those who do wrong should not do wrong.  The point is that there will be consequences.  People will, at the least, lose blessings and rewards in Heaven for their mistreatment of others.  They may face eternal punishment, though.  Which one will happen will depend on something we’ll get to a bit later.

Thus, we see that it’s wrong to just mistreat someone and say, “Well, life isn’t fair.”  It’s like the toddler example, where a child takes another child’s toy and says, “So? Life isn’t fair.”  That child must be taught right from wrong, so they don’t just go around taking other peoples’ things, right?  Of course.  We can’t just excuse our behavior by saying “Life isn’t fair” if we have a chance to behave in a way that will treat others with the kindness, compassion, and so on that they need.  This is where the Golden Rule comes from – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  It’s wrong to blindly act without concern for others and just say “Life’s not fair,” in the same way that you would feel it wrong for someone else to mistreat you and say “So?  Life’s not fair.”

We see, then, that we have a duty to act fairly.  Also, we can be satisfied that those who are unfair in their stealing, lying, mistreatment, etc., will not prosper forever.  However, that doesn’t answer the whole question of fairness. Because, there is another definition of fairness that people often use when they say “It’s not fair!”

This definition of fairness says, “It’s not fair because things aren’t going the way they were planned.”  This is the definition used when someone, for example, eagerly awaits a very special vacation, then suffers all week with the flu. It means that things were “supposed” to go a certain way because that’s what seemed best.

I had a grandfather like that.  He volunteered for World War Two, and served in Lubbock, texas.  He spent around a year preparing; he loved the idea of flying, and was so anxious to fly for his country in the U.S.Army Air Corps. He’s spent so much time training and flying, and then, after all that work, 2 weeks before his flight group’s first flight, he came down with a very painful disease called pleurisy.  He was grounded, and never allowed to fly.  All that time had been wasted!

He was really sad and frustrated for all of two weeks.  Then, his crew took off on their first test flight in New Mexico.  The plane suffered a malfunction and crashed.  There were no survivors.

He lived over 54 years longer because of what he thought at the time was “rotten luck,” but what turned out to be the grace of God.

“Okay, wait,” you say.  “That’s an obvious one.”  But, some people died then, too?  What about why some people get a longer life and others don’t?  That’s not fair, is it?”

It’s not right that some people live longer than others, it’s true.  But, God didn’t mean it to be that way.  He made this world perfect, so everyone could live perfect lives.  However, they had what was known as “untested creature holiness.”  That’s a fancy term that means they had free will; they had the choice to do right or to do wrong.  It’s the choice God gives each of us.  And, man chose to do wrong.  This plunged for world into sin, because suddenly, the world wasn’t perfect.

That’s why we have all the natural disasters too, as well as all big problems – like why not everyone lives the same amount of time – all the way down to the smallest – like why that traffic light you hate so much always takes so long to turn green.  It’s because man brought sin into the world.  The world, in a sense, became broken.

I know, you’re probably thinking, “Well, God should have made them so they had to obey.”  But, then He couldn’t have given you free choice, either.  Just thinking, you wouldn’t be able to choose anything.  You also would have no choice but to follow the rules, or you’d be destroyed.  That wouldn’t be nice, would it?  Isn’t freedom much better?

Yes, freedom is great!  That’s why God gives us the freedom to choose.  He gives us the freedom to make decisions.  However, while you can certainly decide which restaurant to eat at this weekend, and it won’t hurt anyone, there are other choices you might make that can hurt others.  For instance, you might decide to get angry at some waitress in that restaurant, even though she’s only distracted because a loved one was just in a horrible accident and they’re worried about them.

You would expect people to understand if you were in that situation, right?  In fact, I dare say you would probably consider it mean for someone to get extra angry at a waitress if she was suffering like that.  Of course.  That’s a small thing compared to some sins, of course.  But, it’s still sin.  And, it causes us to fall short of the glory of God.  We all get that way sometimes.  But, we only do because we’ve got sin natures.

In fact, because of that sin, those things we do that “just aren’t fair,” we deserve that punishment, just like those who aren’t fair to us.

Thankfully, God made a way for us to get to Heaven, anyway.  See, He came to this world, in the person of Jesus Christ – Jesus was 100% God and 100% man.  He took the punishment for all the world’s unfairness.  He suffered a horrible death on the cross for our sins, and then he rose bodily from the dead.  He did that because we can’t save ourselves.  We have sin natures, and we can’t get to that perfect Heaven.  We would each face eternal punishment, separated from the love of God, if it wasn’t for God’s perfect love in taking our sins upon Himself.  We each have a sin nature, we can’t save ourselves.

God made it very easy, too.  You see, He made it so that we are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God.  Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9)  Think how fair that is.  People who are richer don’t have an advantage in giving over poor ones.  People who are handicapped don’t have a disadvantage over those who can do more physically.  Isn’t that a wonderful and fair way to get everyone saved who wants to be saved from that eternal torment?

All a person has to do to be saved is to “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” (Acts 16:31) That means to put one’s whole trust in Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross, to receive what He did as taking the whole punishment for your sins.  He was sinless, yet He became sin for us.

Once we trust Him to save us, He saves us from all our sins, past, present, and future.  A person who rebelled and didn’t come to Christ till he or she was, say, 50, will have lost many chances to earn blessings and rewards, which they would have had if they’d been saved at age 20, for instance.  However, they will still be saved. (And, we don’t know when we’ll die, so it’s better to get saved now, for now is the day of salvation.)

When we get saved, God comes to live inside of every believer through the Holy Spirit, and He works in us to help us to be more like Him in hwo we treat others, what we do, and so on.  It’s a free choice.  And, we can choose to follow our own path afterward.  But, guess what?  While we still get to Heaven, we lose blessings and rewards.  I could have chosen to play a game like Strat-O-Matic baseball instead of writing this blog, for instance, but I’d have lost the blessing of someone being encouraged by it, or even of someone trusting Christ to save them through it.  I chose to write this blog of my own will, because I want to glorify God and make Him known.

So, will life only be fair when we get to heaven?  Yes, because we live in a sinful world.  But, there is forgiveness for that sin.  And, wonderfully, one day Jesus will come again, and there will be a reign of Christ where fairness will be the norm.  He will “rule the nations with a rod of iron.”  His perfect love and compassion will be matched by his perfect justice.  And still, there will be those who rebel in their hearts because of that sin nature.  We can never create a perfect world here on this earth.  However, we can trust God to one day make a “new Heaven and a new earth.” (Rev. 21:1)  Then, fairness will be the norm again, just as it was meant to be in the beginning.  And, those who dwell there will be either those who died before they were old enough to choose (these go to heaven because it’s Christ alone saving us, not any of our works), or those who made a conscious choice to receive what Jesus Christ did for them as taking the whole punishment for their sins, when he died on the cross for them and rose from the dead.

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