It’s Not Fair.

Tags

Bible, Call, character, Children, fairness

“When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?”” John 21:21

It’s a concept as old as time itself.  The question of fairness makes its way all the way back to the garden when that serpent planted the doubt that it was fair for God to set limits on mankind.  That question of fairness weaves its way through Biblical history stopping at Cain and Abel to ask if it was fair for God to accept one sacrifice and not the other…pausing at the flood to ask if it was fair to wipe out all of mankind while rescuing animals…stuttering past 40 years in the wilderness for one generation and 40 years of quiet in the Promised Land for the next.  We see it weave its way all the way through to Jesus where we find Peter almost muttering it out loud when he asks what John will have to suffer after Jesus jpredicts Peter’s end.

What is fair? Honestly, I don’t think in our human finite minds that we can comprehend the answers to that question.  I think it is far above our capacity to understand and determine.  While we declare absolutely that fair is fair, there are about a million little variables floating around out there that could prove us wrong with just a slight shift in perspective.  Fairness is simply beyond our comprehension.

A counselor told me recently that research has seemed to point out that children under the age of ten are more able to deal with suffering and tragedy because they have yet to form a concept or opinion of fairness.  They simply don’t look at a situation as fair or not fair, they just look at it as what is happening to them that they must find a way to cope with.  This, in part, is why younger children can show such signs of resilience.  They simply don’t give in to bitterness, but rather adapt to changes that happen to them.

That is unless or until they are taught to see the world through different lenses.  Most of the time, it is us adults that bring the concept of fairness into the picture.  Even in parenting especially in Western culture, our kids are taught from a fairly young age about what is fair and what is not.  “Johnny, you can play with that toy for 5 minutes and then you share, or it’s not fair to everybody else.”  “Susie, you can have a cookie too since your sister got one.”  “Okay, everyone gets to have one friend over tomorrow night.”  We set the standard for fair with our children.

It’s why I have finally resorted to being an unfair parent.  I admit it.  I probably need a recovery group or something, but I’m just so sick and tired of the status quo that fairness creates.  We are raising children that do not know how to cope with an unfair world.  Even if we could make people perfectly fair, we can’t change the climate or control the animal population or get rid of all the thorns in the world.  We can’t eradicate all the germs or cure all the diseases or make sure all the food is healthy.  We live in an unfair, broken, messed up world.  And our children are not served by growing up to believe that everything is “fair”.

To prove my point, let’s lay out a couple of scenarios that I deal with on a regular basis that “fairness” based parenting might deal with differently.

I have a child who has an eating problem.  Somehow in the early years of her life food became her comfort and she clings to it.  She will sit at the table for HOURS and eat anything you place in front of her.  I have another child who gets distracted when she eats and so she rarely finishes even half her meal without prodding.  So on any given night, you might walk into my house and see me telling one child, crying to finish her food, that she has had enough and needs to get down from the table, while telling the other, crying because she is “full”, that she needs to sit up at the table and finish her food.  From the outside, this would look very unfair and probably even mean, but in my knowledge of my children, I know that I am doing what is best for them both in the long term.

I have two very different children that like to be involved in activities, but we also have very limited time in our family schedule for extracurricular activities.  Sometimes I might allow one child to be involved while telling the other child that they need to wait.  Sometimes I even make one of my children do the activity that the other wants to do because it fits the family schedule better that way.  To the outside eye this might seem unfair, but I have the perspective of the whole family in mind as I make these decisions.

I could go on, but I think you see my point.  Our concept of fairness can often be an opinion that is formed without all the right information.  While making things seem “fair” in the eyes of my children, I could actually be harming them in the long term.  While making things seem “fair” in the eyes of society, I might actually be doing my children a great injustice.

This is the point that Jesus drove home when Peter asked him about John’s future.  “Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? YOU follow me.” (John 21:22)  Peter was saying “It’s not fair.”, but Jesus was answering “Fair is none of your business. YOU follow me.”

Maybe that’s why these children under 10 are thriving under pressure…fair hasn’t become their business yet.  Instead of complaining that the sickness isn’t fair and all the other kids get to play, they instead are grateful when there is any reprieve and use it to live to the fullest.  Instead of whining about why they have to live with grandma while momma and daddy run off and do their own thing, they resume their normal routine and make the most of it.   Are there underlying feelings that should be dealt with? Usually.  Does this mean that we fight for justice any less?  Of course not.  But perspective can change everything.  Even our attitudes while we face what we feel are the most unfair of life’s circumstances.

Kate, my 5 year old, has a condition called fibrous dysplasia.  It weakens her bones and has resulted in 4 total femur breaks in her short 5 years on earth.  She rarely even mentions it…even when she can’t do things that the other children can do.  The other day, however, she was at a party at school that included a “jumpy thing”.  Since I don’t believe in raising her in a complete bubble, she was allowed to jump and tweaked something in her knee.  For the first time since I have known her, this upset her.

 “Mom, why do I have to have fragile bones?  I don’t want these bones.”

I had a choice right then in how to respond to this.  I could sympathize with her and coddle her and tell her how unfair it was and how I wished with all of my heart that she could go run and jump and play to her heart’s content…it wouldn’t have been untrue.  I was tempted.  Instead I said this…

“Kate, I don’t know why you have fragile bones, but God does.  He has a plan for you right down to those bones.  Yes, you have to be careful and no, you can’t do everything the other kids do, but that’s okay because God always knows what’s best.”

Her circumstances haven’t changed and honestly, probably won’t, but they aren’t a roadblock to what God has for her, rather they are just another part of the path God has created for her to navigate.  Somehow her fragile bones fit into a big, amazing, wonderful plan that we only get to see bits and pieces of and if she can trust that plan she will be grateful for even those fragile bones.

I mess up a lot.  Sometimes I am truly unfair and unjust.  Sometimes my fair or unfair parenting motives are unjust.  As much as my heart wants to parent perfectly, I know that I don’t…

But I know the One who does.  We can trust Him with the “fair” question.  He has the plan.  It might not look fair yet, but one day, hopefully very soon, we will get to see the justice of it all.

So in the meantime, I have found that “it’s not fair” gives us the wrong perspective… after all for every person that we think has it better than us, there are two that have it worse.  Instead, when everything within me wants to scream “IT’S NOT FAIR!”, I make myself say, “I trust Your plan.  I may not be able to see with my eyes why this is necessary.  I may not be able to figure out in my mind how You will ever work this one out. But I trust Your heart and Your love for me.  I know it’s going to be okay.”

He makes every “unfair” moment worth it all…

Note:  a dear reader sent me the  following message and I fully and 100% agree with her words.  May no abuser take this post as a condoning of wrong behavior and may I always be oh so careful to keep my life before the Holy Spirit so my “unfairness” is never abuse.  In no way am I suggesting that we should purposely leave our children unprotected.  Only that we should parent their hearts.

“I always cringe when I hear everyone from child psychologists to parents talk about the resilience of children. While I agree with most of what you said above, I caution you and anyone reading this to understand just what the “resilience of children” means. I disagree wholeheartedly that they are in fact resilient since if you look at any troubled adult around you they can trace their heartaches and problems to significant childhood difficulties that they had to cope with. I don’t think it is in anyway “fair” to put our children through life experiences that we adults could not even handle as adults, and yet you look around at our society and realize that is exactly what we do. When I consider the whole “resilient child” concept what I really see is a child who is forced to comply with whatever the parents have designated. If the parent is trustworthy, loving their child more than anything in the world, wanting what is best for them, and treats the child with respect, love, nurturing and caring, then that child can much easier cope with disappointments or changes in their lives. However, too many untrustworthy parents are relying on this whole concept that children are resilient to make decisions about their children thinking that this will not affect them short term or long term – when in actuality it will. While we parents cannot treat each child the same because they are different little people, we can treat them each justly. That is how Jesus treats each of us – with the same justice, mercy and grace, even if we look at one another and feel “it’s not fair.” I realize that life is not fair, but when my child says to me that something I’m doing is not fair, I sit and talk with them about it because there is usually a root seed to their thinking that I’ve not been aware of. It doesn’t just come from the one instance, but probably deeper. And I do get what you are saying, their idea of unfairness from the eyes of a child is not the same view that we parents are seeing. However, one must be cautious that the children’s needs are indeed being individually met. Candace I don’t know you and I’ve been reading your blog for a little while, so I know your heart is in the right place. I don’t doubt you and I certainly understand where you are coming from. It is just I do know people who are so incredibly unfair in their parenting that it makes me sick. One family, the mom rules the roost, including her husband and they have four young adopted children, and it is the “baby” who is now five that is the princess and all the others are treated extremely badly. This woman is in fact a voice for adoption locally, and in the public eye she comes across as the most doting mom ever, the “perfect” little family, when in reality I’ve seen too much and know that indeed she is extremely unfair, unjust, and even cruel to her other children. The “princess” is without fault and since she has been raised from a baby, is turning into her mom. There is one child of the four, that is the “blame” child. The mom has taught the others through her own actions, words to not like this child and everything gets blamed on this little girl. I’ve confronted my friend about this and other issues, but she doesn’t see it. Because she is the face of adoption around here, leads foster parenting groups and teaches our local DHHR foster parenting class, she is respected and revered, and is looking to open her home to more children.

Candace, your blog is heaven sent to us who understand where you are coming from, but there might be some who read this one and will be reading only what they want to hear and think that being “unfair” is just alright to do not reading that being “just” is also the right thing to do.”

I know I SHOULD…but CAN I trust God?

Tags

Bible, Call

When I was younger I thought for sure that God would call me to the overseas mission field.   I was so certain of this that I would lay in bed at night, eyes wide open, full of fear for all the things I could imagine would happen when He called me to Africa.  I would read stories that scared me half to death about missionaries who would get sick, or lose spouses, or even lose their lives and I would believe that certainly if I were to “surrender all” that Christ would whisk me off to Uganda and leave me there.

Why was I so sure that this was what I was destined for?

Because I hated to travel, I hated being away from home for very long at all, and I hated unfamiliarity of any kind.  I wasn’t born adventurous and I wasn’t a risk taker.  As a matter of fact, my dream job was wife and mother.  That was it.  I just wanted to get married and raise babies.

But surely if I opened up my whole heart and whole will to God and said “God, here I am.  Do what you want with me.” He would overlook everything that He had wired me toward and make me suffer, sacrifice, and live a willingly painful life full of everything I hated.

I truly believed this for a long time and it made me afraid of God.  It made me resist Him.  It made me keep one leg out of the covers so I was ready to run at the first sign of the word “nations”.  The enemy spent years playing off these fears in different ways, laughing his head off because I startled every time I saw another “sign”.

And isn’t this how it has been from the beginning?  The tactics of that snake haven’t changed. Remember how he slithered up to Eve and whispered, “God really just wants to keep you from anything good.  He put that tree there because He knows that it will make you wise like Him and He doesn’t want you to be all that you could be.”  Distrust of the Creator has always been a ploy and a trick used of Satan.

I might believe that this was just another one of those “quirks” of my own relationship with God, but I have seen this fear in others.  I have family members who think that God only wants them so He can make them a doormat for the world.  I have dear friends who are afraid that as soon as they sell out to God, He will take away things most precious to them…their children, their health, their hope for a loving relationship.  Even my own teenage son has at times expressed his fear that God will make him sick to teach him not to be afraid of being sick.

Where do these personal, deep rooted fears come from?  Are they from the Word?  Are they from the Lord? Or are they from the pit of hell?  And if they are being sown by Satan and his lying minions, what in the world are we doing letting them hold us back?

The Bible often describes God as a loving, compassionate Father.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?” Luke 11:11

Yet we often have this demonic idea that God sits on his throne in heaven just waiting for us to trust Him so that He can slay us.  Maybe we get this idea from Job, but subconsciously we think that the moment we throw our hands up in surrender and ask the Lord to run things that He is going to kick us out of the boat and watch us drowned…that His greatest desire for us is to make us do everything we hate the most.

What a twisted, murderous, cheating serpent!  How dare he paint such a picture in our minds of the gracious, kind Daddy that we have in heaven!

“But Candace, didn’t He convert Paul and send him out to suffer?”  I’m glad you asked that question.  Why yes. Yes, He did.  But do you honestly believe that Paul could have been at all effective in the ministry that he was given if he didn’t have a PASSIONATE desire for it?  Do you think he could have endured like he did if he would have spent it wishing that he was doing something else? Paul could only fulfill the call on his life because there was nothing else in the world that he would rather do.  He had been built for this…created for it.  He was fulfilling his purpose and there is nothing like a life of that.

God gave me the desires of my heart.  I am a wife and a mother.  Along the way, God completely revolutionized my fear of the nations by sending me to China for three of my children. The only thing that ever could have gotten me to China was children waiting for their Momma, and He walked me through every single scary, crazy feeling moment.

My “yes” to His call has meant many days of suffering, sacrifice, and pain. Days that I wouldn’t trade for anything because they came to me with the territory of wife and mother.  Sacrifice, suffering,and pain just aren’t as scary when they are part of fulfilling your purpose.  They look so big and mean before you surrender to God, but those giants fall like flies when you get into the Promised Land.  You almost become thankful for the trials (at least in hindsight) because they make you better and they shape your desires to be more like His.  Hard work just isn’t hateable when you love what you do and Who you do it for.

All this is not to say that we will understand everything that God does in and around us along the way…or that there won’t be moments that we are terrified and resistant to something He asks us to do…or there won’t be times that we are tempted to throw in the towel and give up altogether…for sure, EVERY great success in life come with all of that.

But your God, He knows the desires of your heart. He put them there.

Can I trust God?  If we can’t trust the very One who created us, who sustains us, who knows every intricate detail of our minds, bodies, and hearts, who gives us ALL things for life and godliness, who carries us as a man carries his own son…who exactly can we trust?

“”For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened.” Luke 11:10

“Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. ” Psalm 37:4-5

“Fear not, little flock.  It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” Luke 12:32

Gospel Immunity

I often wonder why the Gospel is spread so easily in places where they have never heard it.  Why can a missionary go to China and fill the altars, but an American pastor have to beg for one to come?  Why does an evangelist draw a crowd of 1000 in a remote village, but only 100 in a thriving metropolis?  How can a Jesus following, people loving church in the middle of one of the poorest cities in America still fail to reach 80% of the residents?

I’ve thought through these questions many times.  I’ve driven through downtown Albany, Georgia asking Jesus what I can do.  How can I help?  What can be done?  But I’ve also wondered how in the world, with a church at every quarter of a mile, can so many people still be so lost?  Have the scores of churches in our community really so desperately failed to be a light?

We had friends in town this weekend from Minnesota and their first comment about the South was the sheer number of churches that they passed just driving to our house.  They were in awe at how much Gospel is available to our small city.  Is it that these churches just aren’t DOING anything?

I picked up a homeless woman the other day and gave her a ride to the bus station.  She told me that she was getting help from one of the churches downtown for her drug addiction.  I witnessed to a man the other day who told me that he gets plenty of “that stuff” from his pentacostal preacher dad.  We met some women when we were out delivering meals as a part of church ministry who were quick to tell us that they went to church right up the street.  We have neighbors on all sides of us who attend church.  Every weekend when we are out and about, we see countless yard signs for this ministry or that ministry.  We receive invitations at all kinds of public places to some event a church is holding.  We hear Christian music in the grocery store.  I’m not quite sure what else our churches could do to get the Gospel out on the streets.

It just seems as though people have become immune to the Gospel.  They have been shot with just enough of the form of religion to be denied of it’s power.  They are truly dead man walking and not just because they are dead in their trespasses, but also because they have heard SO MUCH about Jesus and been given SO MUCH by churches that they have no more interest in hearing truth. Literally they have built up an immunity to the life transforming cure.

We saw it while we were out delivering meals with our church ministry. People came from out of nowhere to stop us and ask us which church we were from.  They would tell us that “so and so” didn’t get a meal or make sure we knew that they lived in apartment 1502 with 7 other people who were skipped when the last group came through.  They immediately agreed to let us pray with them and listened to whatever we wanted to tell them and then reminded us to go back to our church and bring them the free meal.

“Jesus answered, ‘I assure you: You are looking for Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.'” John 6:26-27

So I’m not sure that the problem lies in what our churches are doing or not doing.  After all, some of the largest community changing revivals in history drew people without invitation. People would drive by churches and be compelled to come in.

I am beginning to believe that only one thing can change communities that have become immune to the Gospel…the experience of Holy Spirit power.  If it’s going to happen, it’s going to be supernatural.  We can take the Gospel to Africa and they will feast on it!  They’ve never had the meal. Here they have been gorged on it.  They’ve heard it all before and it hasn’t changed them.   Why is this?

“A sower went out to sow his seed. As he was sowing some fell along the path; it was trampled on and the birds of the sky ate it.  Other seed fell on the rock; when it sprang up it withered because it lacked moisture. Other seed fell among thorns; the thorns sprang up and choked it.  Still other seed fell on good ground and when it sprang up, it produced a crop 100 fold.”  Luke 8:5-8

These field have been sown and sown and sown and sown and yes, some of the seed has been flat out rotten.  This isn’t Israel in Biblical times where the good news of the Gospel was new and raw. It hadn’t been a part of any marketing campaigns yet or been twisted by doctrinal views. It hadn’t been tainted by scandal or abuse. And just like in other parts of the world today where the unadulterated and unedited Word of God can enter into a community and change it through the power of the Holy Spirit, it was seed that added to the church daily.

It’s not like that here.  At least not where I live.  People have become immune to even the most passionate presentations of the Truth that could save their lives.

And if what I am proposing here is true, what can we possibly do about it?

• PRAY.  We have to be thoroughly convinced that without the Holy Spirit of God moving on the hearts that we are reaching out to with the Gospel, we will have zero impact on our community. If we aren’t witnessing hand in hand with the Spirit, we might as well not witness.  If we think we can do it ourselves, if we are doing it for brownie points, if we are doing it to feel less guilty, we are wasting our time.
• LOOK FOR EVERY OPPORTUNITY.  As we are praying for our communities, we need to pray for opportunities to share Jesus with open hearts. The Holy Spirit can strategically place us in front of someone receptive in 10 minutes while without His guidance we might spend 10 years on someone who never comes to Jesus.  We need to look for those opportunities that we have prayed for and live with an life open to sharing Jesus wherever we go and whenever He asks us.
• BE BIBLICALLY REALISTIC.  Despite the fact that it is not the Father’s Will for any to perish, some will choose to perish.  I hate even typing that.  It grips me to the core to accept the fact that not everyone will listen, not everyone will turn, not everyone will choose Jesus.  Oh how drastically horrible for those people.  So it is difficult for us to witness and leave the results in God’s Hands.  We have a tendency to be emotional creatures, so we might be tempted to give up and cocoon ourselves from this reality or in the other extreme, open up their mouths and cram it in.  After all, what more dreadful failure is there than not changing someone’s mind about Jesus! That’s what the enemy will whisper. We have to remember that love always gives a choice or it can’t be love.  God is not interested in people manipulated, guilted, or scared into religion.  God is interested in sincere heart change.
• REACH THE NEXT GENERATION. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness until everyone of the generation present at that time died.  The Promised Land generation could not be tainted with the wilderness generation whose hearts had become hardened.  Our young people are our hope and many of them are still open and searching for the Gospel and for Truth.  Many of them are just looking for someone to invest in them and see potential in them. Plant your seed there.
• AVOID BECOMING IMMUNE.  We must examine our own hearts to make sure that we aren’t building an immunity to the faith.   Things like bitterness, critical spirit, envy, jealousy, legalism, and works mentality are signs that we have forgotten the message and wandered from the faith.  Before we venture out into all the world, we do well to make sure that our own heart is tender before the Lord and that our connection with the Holy Spirit is secure.  Repentance is KEY to resisting immunity.
• ASK FOR REVIVAL.  We need to be restored to life and consciousness of the Truth in Jesus Christ and what He has made available to us.  Without revival, the only thing spreading is immunity.

Father, I pray for my own community here in Albany, Georgia.  Your Word promises that You desire to work in the lives of people.  You desire to change destinies and redeem stories.  And You are a great and powerful God well able to do just that.  I ask you to intervene supernaturally in this area.  I pray that You will set Your Church on fire!  That we will no longer be blinded and distracted by earthly, temporal issues and circumstances, but we will instead be fully aware of the weight of eternity.  I pray that You will send opportunities my way to share Your Truth and Your Life with others around me that are in desperate need…others that will hear and respond.  May Your Holy Spirit move upon hearts whenever I am sharing and may Your harvest be great as we sow together. Keep me from all the enemies roadblocks, including wolves in sheep’s clothing who will always only pretend to desire the Gospel.  I pray that wherever You give opportunity and wherever You send me and anyone praying with me, that You will glorify Yourself by adding to Your Kingdom.  Thank You for allowing us to be a small part of Your big picture.  We love You.  Amen.