Life’s Not Fair

By Gregg Hein

“It’s not fair!” wailed the six-year-old when he heard the verdict.

“Well, life isn’t fair,” came the dispassionate reply of his mother. “The sooner you learn that the better.” The injustice of it all! Not receiving a piece of the cake remaining from the celebration of his sister’s confirmation the day before was unusually excessive punishment for not cleaning his plate— at least in his judgment. The boy’s complaint is certainly trivial next to genuine suffering. But is Mom’s observation an overreaction? Is life fair? Is justice always served? Or can bad things really happen to good people?

Two examples can be seen from the same day’s paper in a small western city: (1) The County Coroner today identified the six-month-old baby killed in a one-vehicle rollover accident. The baby died in what the Highway Patrol described as an alcohol-related accident. (2) A seventeenyear-old accused of causing a fatal wreck while fleeing police pleaded not guilty to negligent homicide for the death of a nurse who was almost thirty. The nurse was on her way to work when her Toyota Camry was hit broadside by a GMC driven by a teenager whose blood alcohol was twice the legal limit.

Consider other real life tragedies and suffering, and you might quickly wonder: why? How can a loving God permit evil? If God is all-powerful, why can’t He prevent evil? Why do bad things happen to good people? Often suffering and tragedy prompt these big why questions. In a way, they are asking, “Who is God?” and “What does that mean for me?”

Years ago, a bestseller was published by a Jewish rabbi entitled, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” as an answer to these big why questions. The author, Rabbi Harold Kushner, struggled to see God as simultaneously both all-knowing and kind in the face of evil. He knew suffering firsthand. His young son died from a rare degenerative disease. Rabbi Kushner could not bear the thought of a God who didn’t embody love, so he concluded God’s power was limited.

The best conclusion he could come to was that God probably had a handle on everything in the beginning, but as the world became more populated and complex, God just couldn’t keep up. God WANTED to help and heal and save, but it’s all just too much. In Kushner’s view, suffering and evil occur because the world has spun out of God’s control. If God notices at all, He now only wrings His hands and wishes it were otherwise. Life’s not fair. Get over it.

Oddly, many people still see Kushner’s book as comfort for troubled times. But Kushner’s book has also received sharp criticism. One of Kushner’s critics, Rabbi Yitzchok Kirzner, said, “In the end, Kushner’s vision fails to even achieve his original purpose: preserving God’s benevolence. If God cannot prevent suffering, then neither can He direct Creation to bring about good.”

Unlike theologians of his day or ones that followed (e.g. Kirzner and Kushner), Martin Luther didn’t start with creation when approaching the deep why questions. Like Adam (Genesis 3:15), Job (Genesis 19:25-27), King David (Psalm 110:1), Isaiah (Isaiah 53), and every Old Testament person of faith, Luther saw Jesus on the cross as the starting place for discovering who God is when answering the big why questions. The biggest why ever asked is, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” In English, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?” There with His why question, Jesus draws into Himself all your why questions. Why do innocents suffer? Why is there evil? Why me?

The answer to all your questions is this: “It is finished.” The Righteous Son of God died. As God the Father answers with His Son on the cross and risen from the empty tomb, God is revealing His fullness while retaining His mystery. Because God is God and you are not, your fallen, finite brain will not comprehend the meaning of everything, even things you can clearly see. In the crucified Christ, the Holy Spirit comforts you with confidence in the hope that is not seen but carries you past every suffering in this world. The six-year-old just wants dessert. Others pray God doesn’t give just desserts. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Even in the crucified and risen Christ, life isn’t fair, but it is good and never ends.

Gregg Hein is the husband of the phenomenal DeAnn, father of six, active in his local congregation, businessman, and home improvement do-it-yourselfer. E-mail him at gregghein@ msn.com.