I remember when I wanted everything in life to be "fair". If I put the clothes in the wash, you had to put it in the dryer. If I washed the dishes, you had to put them away in the cabinet. Sometimes, this feeling that things need to be "fair" come back- right now, it's clinging pretty hard on my back.
But you know what they say- "Life's not fair". It's said to acknowledge an unfair balance in a situation, when there's more things given for me to do than to you- if I have to wash and dry the clothes, for example. "But I already washed the clothes, why to have to dry them?! It's not fair!" I complain. The response- "Life's not fair, Naomi."
Unfairness is seen as reality in this phrase, and, well, it is reality. It's how life is; unfairness will poke up its ugly head. But you know what? God's not fair either. And because of that, Christians shouldn't be fair.
No, I'm not saying that God and his followers stand around placing burdens and cracking the whip- though if a Christian is doing that, there's a serious problem (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2011:37-54&version=MSG; see v.46 especially). What I'm saying is that God's not fair- but in the opposite ways that the world see unfairness.
When something's not fair, there is an imbalance going on. Usually that imbalance is to the person saying it's not fair- indicating that their load is heavier than the other person's, or that the other person ruined the balance somehow (cheating in a game, for example, usually warrants cries of, "That wasn't fair! You cheated!)
When things are perfectly balanced, it's fair. And- let's be honest- if God was being "fair" as we define it, all of us would be so weighed down by our sins that we'd all go to hell.
I know that's not a pleasant thought, but that's what's fair! But the best part is- God's not fair! He sent Jesus to die for us, and tipped the balance, taking that weight off out shoulders! The scales of justice were perfectly balanced, weighing us down, but God took the sin weighing down our side and put it on His side of the scale! That's crazy- it's not fair, it's not justice! But it's mercy. And mercy is an awesome thing.
And, bringing it all back around- we Christians shouldn't be "fair" either. Again, when I talk about Christian unfairness, I'm not talking about burdens. I'm talking about taking the other person's burden, unbalancing the scale by making our side heavier.
I remember an incident that happened a couple months after I'd come back to God. I can't remember the exact context of the incident, but I do remember this: I had forgotten to get spoons for the table, and my sister was not happy with me, even though she'd offered to get the spoons (which is why I haven't offered to get them, if I remember correctly). She openly complained to me about it.
When this happens, I usually argue right back. Naturally- if she puts more weight on my side of the scale, I push that weight right back on her side, and add some more weight for good measure. She had offered to get the spoons- it wasn't fair that she was blaming me now!
But something . . . something heavenly happened inside me, and I stopped myself. I was at fault, and I openly said so instead of impulsively arguing- something I don't think I had done in maybe years, or at least hadn't done with God's spirit inside me.
This stopped her from speaking for a minute, and then she replied that it was okay, and that she was at fault as well (again, I think because she'd offered to get the spoons, which is why I didn't get them. Or something).
You see what happened there? Instead of pushing weight onto each other's scales, God let me accept the weight I was given, and my sister took back the weight in return. This is what is known as "turning the other cheek", and in the first few months I came back to God, I did this probably for the first time in my life- and when I did so, I felt God working inside of me.
Now, I'm not trying to put myself up as a role model here (when it come down to it, I can be a horrible human being, to be honest), but I just wanted to provide a personal example. As Christians, we are called to be unfair- but not in the way you think of when you think of "unfairness". We are called to be unfairly loving, unfairly gracious and forgiving. The phrase, "What Would Jesus Do?" comes to mind, and he lived the most unfair life ever, loving those who, by society's standards, didn't "deserve it".
That is what we must do. That is what I must do. That is what you must do. And we can't do it without God's help. We want things to be fair. God wants unfair love to invade our lives- always.
