Life Isn't Fair

Over the last week and also in the past I have thought about life being fair. I remember when I was a child I thought that everything had to be fair and equal. I remember after a few hours of rolling newspapers in the back of our hatch-back early one morning, my mom and I went to the bakery to get a pastry, which rarely happened because we were very poor. My mom was just going to buy something for us. I thought to myself in my maybe seven year old brain, it wouldn't be fair for me and mom to be the only ones to get a treat. We needed to get enough for all of my siblings so it would be fair and no one would feel left out. My mom did her best to explain to me that it was okay if just she and I got a treat and we didn't get anything for the others. It was a little difficult for me to wrap my brain around. Whatever it was that she said, I still remember feeling guilty that morning.

I remember a conversation I had with my friend Heather. She has six sisters and her parents always made sure that all of the girls got equal treatment. If one got money for their birthday than the others would have to get the same amount of money for their birthday gifts. This plan for fairness hit a bit of a snag when one sister developed cancer and her parents felt that they could not give this daughter the money she needed for her medical expenses without giving all of the other sisters the same amount of money. Under these conditions her parents felt like they couldn't help the daughter with cancer until the other sisters told them that they wanted this sister to get some money from them and they didn't want or expect anything from their parents.

Well fairness in life can be a good thing to work towards. I assume that is why God created the Law of Consecration so we could all look after the poor and we would all have our needs met. However I believe if people look to God to make sure that everyone here on earth has an equal amount of possessions, pains, love, heartaches, happiness, responsibilities, sicknesses, skills or anything else, they will be sorely disappointed. No doubt if they believe that God possesses the characteristic for fairness or equality, they will likely lose their belief in Him because in this world there is little equality in the things mentioned above.

What God does say is that he is no respecter of persons (D&C 38:16), he makes the rain fall and the sun to shine on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45), and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). We also know that if we endure well God will exalt us on high (D&C 121:8). Do you ever think to yourself, "With the amazing blessings promised to me I am surprised that the cost isn't higher or that my faith hasn't been tried more?" If you are  like most people, the answer is probably no. If our beliefs about God cause us to lose our belief in him perhaps we have a misunderstanding of the correct characteristics of God.

There are many hard things that we all go through in life. There is no way to quantify our trials and our blessings to see if they are equal with those of others. There is also no good way to determine if we have been properly compensated for our good deeds. We just know that if we seek to do God's will, all of our pains and trials will give us experience and be for our good (D&C 122:7).

We can't say that bad things don't happen to good people. In some cases bad things happen to good people because God knows they are up to the challenge and he needs to try their faith and strengthen them as he did with Job. We never know if our trials will turn to blessings or if what seems like a blessing will turn into a trial, we just know that God wants to raise up a righteous people and cleanse us from sin. We also don't know how much our righteousness in our premortal life affects the quality of our life here. We just know that God's ways and thoughts are higher than our ways and thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).

I believe that our trials and challenges are custom made for our individual growth and development. There are lessons that I need to learn or that I have been prepared to learn that are not right for others. When we go through hard things it seems much more productive to ask, "What can I learn from this?" or think, "Wow, God must really believe I am strong enough to take this on.", instead of asking, "Why is God treating me so unfairly?" Life will never be fair in our eyes, so we need to stop expecting it to be or we will live life with an untold number of disappointments.