That's Not Fair!

If you have ever been a parent, especially to multiple kids, you have more than likely heard the phrase, “That’s not fair!” I usually hear that phrase come from my boys because their mother and I have made a decision that they do not believe is fair compared to similar decisions their brother has received. Well, they may be right! However, not all decisions can be made out of fairness and often they are made by circumstance. There are many factors other than fairness that are taken into account when we make decisions as parents. For example, their age matters when we allow them to go out by themselves or have access to social media. Also, financial considerations are often different for our younger son than our oldest. When our older son was our youngest’s age we didn’t have the same financial means that we do now. While we try to be fair in our decision making, it is not always possible because circumstances in our lives change. I think we, as adults, should try to remember that in our own lives.

Sometimes we can be so upset by what we think is an unfair situation that we don’t remember that there are sometimes factors that make being fair nearly impossible. In my life right now I have been upset for the past year because the school district where we live had decided to convert my youngest son’s elementary into a preschool and bus him and his fellow students to another elementary school. This upset us because of the numerous annoyances that this has caused with traffic and new schedules as well as a lost convenience we once enjoyed of being able to walk across the street to school. Is this fair? Probably not, but that doesn’t matter. I understand that the school district had to make a decision not based on fairness but resource and circumstance. I may still be upset by the decision but I also understand that not all decisions are fair.

This Sunday, we will have a discussion about fairness and how we are called to mercy over fairness. Fairness is ideal but in a world where it is not always possible, mercy should reign. Join us for worship at 8:30 or 10:45 am as we learn to favor mercy over fairness.

In God’s grip,

Pastor Chuck Church