That’s Not Fair!

I don’t know if this is a tendency of perfectionism or not.  But I have always had an acute sense of justice.  When I saw unfairness happen, my reaction was, “That’s not right!  That’s not fair!”  When I’ve expressed that to others, they are usually like: “You’re right, life’s nor fair.  Just buck up and deal with it.” 

So when I was watching a BYU-Idaho Devotional earlier this week, I heard some doctrine that resonated with me.  Elder Dale G. Renlund was speaking.  Here’s the part of his address that caught my attention and that I want to share: 

Unfairness is all around us and it is troubling. If we’re not careful, the appearance of unfairness may cause us to reject the favorable along with the unfavorable. Or to use an idiomatic expression, “to throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Perceived unfairness deals us a major body blow. 

Let me present several scriptural “baby/bathwater” scenarios.  

Was it fair that Abraham’s first child, Ishmael, did not receive the Abrahamic covenant, but that Isaac did? If it was unfair, did that unfairness invalidate the Abrahamic covenant that God made with Abraham and renewed with Isaac?  

Was it fair that only the descendants of Levi, the son of Jacob, held the priesthood, and others who were equally worthy (or perhaps even more worthy) did not? Does that unfairness change the reality of the priesthood that was conferred upon the Levites? 

Was it fair that Jesus Christ came to the House of Israel, and not to the Gentiles? Does that unfairness negate His divine Sonship and His infinite atonement? 

Despite the apparent unfairness, the Abrahamic Covenant is valid. The authority of the priesthood is real.  And Christ’s atoning sacrifice is authentic. 

The base isolator for unfairness is to develop faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement and understand how His atonement is applied to us. Faith and understanding help us recognize that all are alike unto Heavenly  Father and the Savior and that They love all of Heavenly Father’s children. And that They desire that all return to their heavenly home. 

Additionally, Jesus Christ understands perfectly what it is like to suffer innocently because of the world’s inherent unfairness or the inappropriate application of someone else’s agency, evilly intended, or not. We cannot teach Jesus Christ anything He doesn’t already know about unfairness. He was treated the most unfairly of any of Heavenly Father’s children. But He can teach us how to deal with it. 

This constantly reminds us that the Savior loves to restore what you cannot restore, He loves to heal wounds you cannot heal, He loves to fix what has been irreparably broken. He compensates for any unfairness inflicted on you, and He loves to permanently mend even shattered hearts. 

Remembering the goodness of God makes something remarkable happen. At a future day, the promise is that “God shall wipe away all their tears . . . and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away (Revelation 21:4).” 

C.S. Lewis wrote, in the foreword to his book, “The Great Divorce,” “[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven. The Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except Heaven.’”

Let me pose three questions. 

First, does the fact that life is unfair to you or to others alter the reality of a kind, loving Heavenly Father, a living Christ, and the truthfulness of the First Vision and the restoration of the Savior’s gospel? 

Second, do the subsequent revelations through Joseph Smith and his successors and the promise of eventual eternal fairness help you cope with the unfairness of this fallen world? 

The third question, what personal habits can you develop that will help you develop and maintain strong faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement and His ultimate fairness? 

Our faith in Jesus Christ will allow us to remain standing and carry on despite the unfairness of life. However, you and I want to know how. How is God going to do that? To my knowledge, God hasn’t revealed how to his prophets, seers, and revelators. What I do know is that for us to demand to know how before we trust in Him and develop faith in His promises is misguided, and ignores what God told Isaiah about Himself: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).” Let’s hold our questions for later and work on developing faith.

I know that I basically just copied and pasted this devotional talk for my blog post, but I loved this message.  And I love his reasoning.  Just because something is not fair, doesn’t mean it is not good and true.  And it increases my faith in the Savior to know that He will compensate for all the injustices of life.  All will be made right, eventually.  

To be continued . . . with Part 62