Читать книгу Mustard Seeds - Melissa Levi - Страница 31

Life Isn’t Fair

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Romans 10:3

It was Thursday afternoon and the freeway was backed up and so was every road leading north of the city. I decided that I would go up through the tunnels home. Bumper to bumper and inch by Inch, traffic slowly clawed up the hill leading to the tunnels.

My Altima was not pleased to be idling with the air on so I conceded, turned off the air and rolled down the windows to allow the moisture saturated air of late July into my vehicle.

Immediately, the swirl of humidity encased me in a swaddle of sweat and discomfort. I stole glances at my road mates. Just like me, they reluctantly withstood the aggravation of the rush time traffic snarl under the oppression of mid-summer heat.

It seemed like hours rather than minutes as we lurched forward, then idled, and lurched again sluggishly tracking to the top of the hill.

I was now only five cars from the roundabout and I craved the freedom that the other side of the tunnel promised. I heaved a sigh of relief. However, before I moved one more car length, a rather large gray pickup rumbling up the emergency lane roared past me, and the four cars in front. Perched at the summit, it began to muscle its way in front of the leading car. A choir of horn blasts filled the air. Mine included. Hot temps led quickly to hot tempers. Every driver in front of me bunched their sedans together to push out this upstart. Fist and fingers waved dissatisfaction and the chorus of horns rose up filling my ears. The woman in the leading car, a small white Sentra, screamed and stomped her gas pedal to thwart the advances of the line breaking Dodge. The woman in the truck shrieked in response and roared the truck forward to counter the Sentra.

People began to hang out windows, screaming and wailing obscenities to the driver of the truck.

Nonetheless, this line breaking Dodge refused to heed the show of solidarity of drivers, and nearly crushing the leading car refused to back down. Nosing the truck forward the truck rolled over the divider and plunged into traffic disappearing into the black hole of the tunnel. The little white car whizzed around the roundabout and vanished into the burrow right behind the bold intruder. All the way down the road the white sedan chased the gray truck, weaving and speeding through the town. I clenched the steering wheel at every light as each ignored the safety of others. The pursuit continued up the highway and I was happy to be taking my turn down my street.

I thought about that incident throughout the night and how angry the drivers were to be pushed out of admittedly an earned position in the line of weary workers seeking the refuge of their homes. I questioned the audacity of the truck driver to deliberately and without remorse cheat the motorists of their turn.

I thought of other aspects of our lives that we viciously protect our interest, our rights and the fairness of the situation. If we have heard it, felt it or shouted it ourselves, we know how much being slighted and treated with unfairness infuriates not just the adults but everyone down to the toddler.

My mother, when I would whine of the unfairness of a situation was quick to tell me, “Life, is not fair.”

I can tell you that without a doubt my experiences have proved her correct more times than I can remember. Life is indeed not fair. We see it every day in the hospital, the boardroom, the roadways, the ball fields and right in our own homes.

Fairness is a very human concept. It is not biblical and nowhere that I have found does the Word intimate that God is “fair.” We, however, have evolved into a society that believes that fairness is due. In today’s society, children do not fail, no one loses, and everyone gets a trophy. We bring gifts to the siblings of the birthday child so as not to make the other children feel left out.

People get all lathered up when they think they, or a group is being treated unfairly. In our world today, evil is not treating everyone with the same “fair” standards. Everyone has to be treated equally. This idea breeds the concept of entitlement, and the excuse not to do anything for anybody because we cannot do it for everyone.

Nowhere that I have found in the Bible are we guaranteed a “fair” deal here on earth. In fact, the Bible instructs us in our fair behavior toward others with no guarantee of the same being returned to us. (See Deut 25:15, 2 Cor 8:13-14 and Col 4:1)

What is and is not fair has been determined by the world.

Instead of wasting our time and energy worrying about what is fair and how we have been treated, we should try focusing on how we deal with others and serve God.

God is not fair, He is just.