Good and Fair

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The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works.—Psalm 145:17

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I believe that once you are grateful for life, seeing it as an opportunity to give love, your life is changed and lived as it was meant to be lived by our Creator.

Examples of this are people I know with a variety of diseases and handicaps whom I call healthy. Why are they healthy? They have learned what a friend of mine, a doctor, once said: “True good health is the ability to live without it.”

Sam Keen tells of a friend of his with Lou Gehrig’s disease. He is severely ill, and even breathing was a problem. Sam was visiting him, and he complimented his friend on his attitude. The friend asked, “What choice do I have?” and Sam said, “You could piss and moan a little.” His friend said, “It never occurred to me.” Yet most people, if you ask them if life is fair, will shout NO at you. The richer they are, the louder they shout. What we have to realize is that while life is difficult, it is not unfair. We all have our problems. The key is to learn how to live with them and even how to use them.

Even in Job we learn that afflictions heal, and adversity opens you to a new reality.—Bernie S. Siegel1

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You have often wondered why some people who are loving, kind, and unselfish suffer, while others who only look out for themselves, dash the dreams of others to get what they want, and trample others in their charge up the ladder of success appear to have it better. While you cannot always see the outcomes, each person will reap in the next life what they sow in this life.2 Justice will come in the next life.

Judgment will be meted out to those who were unloving and cruel and caused others to suffer; they will have to suffer the consequences of their evil actions until they learn the error of their ways and repent. But when those who lived right pass on, although they may have suffered or gone without on earth, they will be blessed with greater rewards and joy than they ever imagined.

And besides being rewarded in the next life, I bless the loving and unselfish in this life. I bless them spiritually. I bless them with happiness and contentment, peace of mind, and a clear conscience. Meanwhile, some of the wealthiest people in the world are also some of the saddest, loneliest, and most lost, because money can’t satisfy the needs of the spirit.

So pursue the blessings of My Spirit—the love, joy, contentment, and feeling of fulfillment that comes only from knowing that you’ve done your best to lead a godly life. Only then will you truly appreciate that life is fair.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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All things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.—1 Chronicles 29:14

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In the context of the Christian, eternal life, pain, suffering and evil can be faced and endured with strength, hope and confidence unavailable in an atheistic worldview. What used to seem so unjust to me is now less egregious. What used to seem so unbearable can now be faced with hope. The problem of evil, from my new Christian perspective, isn’t the same kind of problem it was from my old atheistic perspective, because the problem of evil isn’t really a problem for Christianity.—J. Warner Wallace

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I know you’re fighting a difficult battle, and you might think that’s not fair. “Why do I have to keep having all these tests and trials?” But look how many blessings and privileges you do have! Look at your family, friends, and where you live. If you sometimes think you have so many terrible battles, it helps to praise the Lord for all the blessings He gives you.

Through the trials and tribulations you face, He can help you to gain wonderful victories. The Bible has a lot of good to say about tests and afflictions and difficulties. Those are some of the things that help us and that make us what we are. Remember, all great saints have suffered; that’s part of what made them great!

So when you’re tempted to say, “Why me? How awful!” Instead say, “Thank You, Jesus! Thank You for using this time of testing to help to make me what You want me to be.”—Maria Fontaine

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Blessed be Your name
In the land that is plentiful,
Where Your streams of abundance flow,
Blessed be Your name.
Blessed be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place,
Though I walk through the wilderness,
Blessed be Your name.
—Matt Redman

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God is good and fair in happy times and hard times. His goodness shows both in what He gives and what He withholds, what He allows and what He denies. This is one of those “a lot in one” concepts. With this attitude, you can’t help but also experience increased joy, faith, peace, and gratitude.—Olivia Bauer

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I am good, and I can cause every seemingly bad thing to work together for your good, as I have in the past, and as I will do in the future. Please try to see all the “bad” through the perspective of My promise in Romans 8:28,3 and then you can praise Me for the good that I’m going to bring out of it—even if you don’t see it right now. In the meantime, you can still “count it all joy” that you’ve come through the tests, that there are blessings of some sort awaiting you, and that you have them even now by faith, which is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”4

When it comes to My children, the Enemy never wins. I change every calamity that he brings along into a victory, and he just can’t win for losing—both now and forever.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

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The very word “God” suggests care, kindness, goodness; and the idea of God in His infinity, is infinite care, infinite kindness, infinite goodness.—Henry Ward Beecher

Published on Anchor September 2015. Read by Jon Marc.

1 Louise L. Hay, Gratitude: A Way of Life (Hay House, 1996).
2 Galatians 6:7.
3 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (ESV).
4 James 1:2; Hebrews 11:1.