Life sometimes feels unfair. We’ve all felt that before right? Something bad might’ve happened, or someone might have done something bad to us, and we might get hurt, upset, lose something. It might even be a huge tragedy. Many of us have felt and gone through this before.
Even in my life I’ve found myself multiple times, even recently, saying and complaining that’s not fair! There’s been times where someone did wrong against me and I got upset, I got angry. And with that came thoughts of jealousy and envy. And just bad thoughts overall. Someone might get credit for what you did. Someone makes way more money even though you did more work. Someone might have physically hurt you. Someone might have stolen. It can be anything!
It might not even be from someone. Maybe you get sick for a long long time. Maybe some tragedy happens. Maybe you had to move across the world. Maybe you were separated from family. Maybe you lose a loved one. I mean we’ve all had something unfair happen right? Life can feel unfair at times. Its a common feeling. In this world, people make mistakes, people can do evil, and bad things can happen, and it hurts!
But what I want to focus on is in those moments in life when things feel unfair. If someone does us wrong, how do we react? When something just bad happens out of nowhere? How should we act and what do we do?
If someone did something to us, usually our first reaction is to just take it into our own hands right? Something happens to us, someone lies, hurts, steals, whatever it is. Our first human thought is to take revenge! We might get emotional and yell, get angry, do evil against evil, or even say something bad. That’s not necessarily good, but its a natural reaction we have. Or if its not from someone and just some bad situation, we might fall and just get upset at the world, at life.
And as I had one of these “life is unfair” moments recently, It made me start to read and research into how I, as a Christian should react. And one thing I noticed even in myself is I had at that moment a pretty small view of God. When those bad things happened and I got mad and angry and frustrated, thinking why me, this is so unfair. What was happening was I was focusing on myself and my emotions, and not on God. God was small in my heart at that moment.
In those moments of pain and bad things, we can often push God to the side. Or maybe we just aren’t living life really focused on God. Our prayers are tiny and on the surface. Maybe we just pray those tiny prayers in the morning, Lord thank you help me with this with that. Just tiny prayers with no depth. And in those moments when something goes bad, or someone does something wrong, when we aren’t close to God, we might take things the wrong way. And we might do something wrong ourselves and even sin!
When I was praying and reading trying to react the proper way, this “saying” or idea stuck out to me. And we’ve heard it before. When our God, in our minds and hearts, is small, our problems in life look huge. But when our God in our minds and hearts is huge, our problems… they look small!
See when something unfair in life happens. When someone or something does wrong, How we see God, and how big God is in our lives, it changes how we react!Now what do I mean by how big God is. I mean in our hearts, how much do we understand how good, loving, caring, just, and powerful God is? Truly in our hearts, how much do we feel that?
There’s two things that have been sticking out to me when I’ve been going through that hard time. Its the Justice of God, how God is the final and perfect judge. And God's Sovereignty, how big and in control he is. And I want to look into these two areas and see how these traits of God can help us better react to when bad things happen to us.
God's Justice
Romans 12:17-20 “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord. On the contrary: If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Notice in this verse what Apostle Paul is saying – he’s saying do not be the one to take revenge. Let God, the one who is the perfect judge, do it. And he even goes a step further with examples. If there’s an enemy, help them, do good and show love towards them. If someone does evil to you, don’t follow your first instinct and do evil back, but do good!
God sees that, and he, in his perfect judgement, will judge at the end of our lives all according to what we have done. The Bible is very clear on us being judges. The Bible tells us to forgive and not judge, or we will be judged ourselves. Its a clear calling that God is the one, in the end, who will judge us according to our works. It’s even more clear in 2 Corinthians that we will appear before the judgement seat of Christ, receiving what we have done in our time on earth.
In those times when someone does wrong, it can be very hard to let it go to God, but its so important that we do it. Not only is it written and our calling to do so, but isn’t it just so much better when we trust in the all knowing God with this? We can even get freedom from it. There’s people out there that might be holding onto bitterness or some other grudge or wanting revenge for something someone did, for years and years. Those years of unforgiveness and anger just rot us from the inside out. When we let those pains go to the ultimate Judge, and understand God is the perfect Judge, we get set free. All those nights staying up, all those negative thoughts towards someone else, when we let it go to God, the one who did you wrong isn’t the one who experiences freedom, it's you!
Sometimes we don’t even know the full story of why something bad happened. Or why someone did something bad to you. Maybe it was a pure mistake that caused pain. Maybe it was true evil. Maybe it was an insecurity, maybe something else. Maybe if we were in that same situation, we might have done the same. You never know! That’s why its better to show grace and mercy, and just let it go into the hands of God. God knows everything. He knows your thoughts, the thoughts of others. He knows why something happened. And by us letting go of all of that pain to God, showing kindness to that person, and letting God be the perfect judge, we are the ones that feel freedom. And it’s us doing what God calls us to in those moments.
In this world, before heaven, unfair things happen. It’s a fallen world of full of sin. But God is still the perfect judge that once we make it to heaven, everything will be perfectly judged. Us too, but if we have faith in Jesus, his blood will cover our sins and all iniquity. Jesus is also the perfect example of this.
1 Peter 2:23 “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly”
Jesus gives us a great example here. When he was in the world. Dealing with the unfair, sin filled world. People were not fair to him. People did wrong. He didn’t deserve it. And look at what he did! He gave it all to God, knowing he will do everything perfectly. How many times have I thought why me? why does something bad or unfair have to happen? See when we come across these moments, where something bad happens, we should act like Jesus did. Jesus had every right to say the same thing.
We should fight the temptation of handling things and taking revenge or getting upset ourselves. We should let things go, let the perfect judge, God, judge himself. This is God’s will for us, and when we give an account of our lives, in front of Christ, those moments where we gave our pain to God, we know we did the right thing.
God's Sovereignty
But what if that unfairness you’re facing isn’t from a person? Maybe it’s just some situation you’re in. It could be a sickness, a tragedy, a loss. Sometimes we forget in our sorrow or angriness how powerful and sovereign and big God is. When we’re in those difficult moments it’s so easy to forget that God is actively controlling everything according to his own will.
There’s so many verses that talk about how big and powerful God is:
Matthew 10:29-31 “ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Romans 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
And here more specifically it’s about Jesus!
Colossians 1:15-17 “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.18And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ”
This is the sovereign God that loves you and me. Who sent his son for you and me. The all powerful God who built everything. In those moments of pain and tragedy and thoughts of why me, think about how big God truly is. We all know who God is in our heads. We know he created the universe and us. But the more we study and read and think about these kind of scriptures, the more we truly start to feel how big he is in our hearts!
You start to have these thoughts of wow, God really created me, the universe, every animal, every creature, every hair on my head. The alpha and omega, the all knowing God loved me? The King of Kings cared for me? He knew me before I was even born? That a God, so loving, sent his son to suffer for me? That if i’m suffering or having some problem, he will take care of me? He will provide what I need? That somehow he will use all that’s happening in my life for his Glory? And my ultimate good?
Those are the love-filled thoughts that we start to have in our minds in the hard times. When life feels unfair, think about how big God truly is. The bigger and bigger we feel God in our hearts, the more and more our problems here… they just start to get smaller and smaller. We start to love more, loving people that hurt us, love Jesus so much that even hard trials don’t shake us.
One of my favorite verses is Romans 8:28
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
This verse gives me so much peace. If we love God. If we are called according to his purpose, which we are, he will work in all things for our good. We can be in the middle of a hard journey, maybe an unfair trial, but we can still take comfort because He is taking it into account and accomplishing His mission and purpose through it.
And this is really one of the beautiful mysteries of God, in my opinion. How is it that we as people have free will, and yet God somehow takes all of the things we do in free will, and still accomplishes his will.
I often make mistakes. Other people often make mistakes. I sin and others sin. We can easily cause pain for others accidentally. And yet, somehow, someway, God uses it all for his final Glory and for the ultimate good of us. That’s how powerful God is. He works in such mysterious ways, and yet he works so perfectly too. And that just gives me such peace. It lets me trust in Him more and more.
Back in the book of Genesis, the story of Joseph sticks out. More recently, the passing of Charlie Kirk as well. Those are perfect examples of where someone had something very unfair happen, and yet God used it for his good and glory.
Joseph was wronged by his brothers, sold into slavery, and went through this big journey of ups and downs. What his brothers did was unfair to him. But with God and all his power, he turned it around for Gods glory and Joseph’s good!
Charlie Kirk was unfairly killed, and look at what happened at his memorial. Millions of people heard about Jesus more than ever before. What they meant was for evil. God used it for good. That’s the almighty God we serve. We can trust in God that he is perfectly Just. If someone does something wrong to us, we don’t take revenge.
We take rest knowing we have Jesus, that perfect savior to take that pain and sorrow from us. He is the one that will judge and take care of it for us. If something else in life happened. If some tragedy or unfair thing happened, we can take rest knowing God is in control of everything. He will somehow, someway use it for His Good and Glory.