July 23, 2015

 

Dear MLEPC Members and Friends:

 

"That's not fair!" I cannot begin to recall how many times each of our four Janiszewski children lodged this complaint against Juli and me when they were young. It, however, usually occurred when we granted a privilege to one of the kids that wasn't identically provided for another one. It wasn't fair that one got to go with friends to the movie theater, while the other stayed home. It wasn't fair that one stayed up a bit later in the evening, while the other had to go to bed. It wasn't fair that one received more weekly allowance than did the other and so forth. You get the idea.

 

So, was it true that Juli and I were being unfair and unreasonable? Were we setting a bad example in creating a slanted playing field that favored some children while penalizing others? Well, I suppose that it is possible, but I certainly hope not! I can say that we tried to work through these things before making decisions concerning each child within the context of all four children and the whole family system. Here is what we regularly tried to explain to our kids when they cried, "That's not fair!" We said, "You are right that we are not treating you and your siblings equally, but we are trying to treat you fairly. If you are upset about unequal treatment, we understand how you feel. But by treating each of you children as individuals, we believe that sometimes fair is not the same as equal. In fact, sometimes in order to be most fair, we must treat each of you unequally instead of equally. In order to love you best, we realize that one size doesn't always fit all of you all the time."

 

Well, you can imagine that this sort of response elicited little consolation on the part of the child who was upset. Particularly at an early age, some of them couldn't move beyond their conviction that "fair is the same as equal." If things weren't equal, in their young reasoning and emotions they simply could not be fair. But that is not true, is it? Fair and equal were not identical, particularly when we were seeking to help our children to grow through a broad range of developmental stages, since our oldest and youngest were eight years apart in age.

 

I sometimes think that we need to apply this simple wisdom to spiritual life, as well. God is our heavenly Father. He loves all of us as His chosen ones who by grace through faith have called on Jesus to be our Savior. His fatherly goal is for us to grow to spiritual and human maturity that emulates Jesus in thought, word, and deed. Each of us is a unique child of the Father. Each one is at a somewhat different stage of discipleship development. This being the case, I believe that the Father in love treats us all with absolute fairness--fairness that sometimes is not the same thing as equality. In fact, I further believe that He displays amazing grace that goes well beyond mere fairness with us. But even this great grace manifests itself in unique ways for each of us that are not equal to all.

 

The temptation sometimes can be that of feeling that God isn't quite being fair. Why do some of His children seem to get privileges that we don't? Why do they get an expression of grace that we wish we would get? Why do spiritual doors seem always to open for them that don't open for us? Why do they have spiritual gifts that we desire? Why do we suffer through trials and tests, when it appears that they live such charmed lives? At these times, I suggest that we need to realize that, to be sure, God is not treating us all equally, but He is treating us fairly. Even more so, we must trust that even as Juli and I as flawed human parents were doing our level best for each one of our biological kids to grow and to develop toward maturity, our perfect heavenly Father is doing just the same thing--except far better--for our spiritual and eternal well-being.

 

So in sum, God's treatment toward us:

Equal? No.

Fair? Yes.

Love and grace-filled? Absolutely!

 

Let's trust Him this week to be at work in our lives in ways that are both fair and faithful to His deeply loved children.

 

Pastor Tim

 

++++