Dear Daisy,
I am stepping way out of my comfort zone opening up to you today. A few years ago my beautiful ten year old daughter was killed in a car wreck while my family and I were coming home from dinner. We were rear-ended by a drunk driver that didn’t see we were stopped waiting to turn on a two lane road. He lived, and my baby didn’t. I can’t seem to get past my anger and bitterness that God took my baby and let this drunk live. It’s NOT fair! Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? ~ Signed, It’s not fair.
Dear It’s not fair,
I am so sorry for your loss. Losing a loved one is difficult, especially when it’s a child. Let’s see what we can find in God’s Word.
Let’s go to God’s Word first.
“17 The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”
Psalms 34:17-19
“7 Don’t let them get away with their wickedness; in your anger, O God, bring them down.
8 You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalms 56:7-8
“Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.” Psalms 126:5
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
The truth is, your Heavenly Father that created you and breathed life into you, sees you. He knows your pain and has plans to deliver you out of all of your troubles and pain once you allow Him to. He sees your broken heart and wants to comfort you. He warns us that in this life we will suffer greatly but to take hope that He is with us through it all. Jesus reaffirms that. He not only keeps track of all your pain and sorrow from your testing moments; He collects all your tears recording every one of them and why they streamed down your cheeks.
You might be wondering why a loving God tells us to expect suffering and allows it to happen to those He created and loves. It does make one wonder. The good news is that He explains this in His Holy Bible and you can learn the answers when you study from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation. His truth will set you free from pain and doubt in Him (John 8:32). The short answer for you: without suffering, we would believe that we didn’t need Him and would try to live life without a relationship with Him. (He created us to be in relationship with Him and worship Him.) Also, He allows suffering in order to shape us into who He created us to be. He has to remove our sinful nature when we give our lives to Jesus.
I totally understand that these scriptures and these truths can fall flat when you are blinded by your pain; it happens to all of us. That is, until we learn to let go and allow Him to pour His love and truth into our soul. Did you know that when you are clinging to anger and bitterness, you can’t cling to God?
On the upside, the very fact that you got out of your comfort zone to reach out to me for guidance shows that deep down you are also ready to let go of the anger and bitterness but don’t know what to do next if you allow that to happen. The scriptures above are your roadmap to follow.
It’s human nature to cling to something whether physically or mentally. God created us to cling only to Him but it’s often difficult to cling to a God you can’t see. However, once you choose to let go of the negative feelings you are clinging to and give them to God trusting that He will replace them with His love and comfort, it is then that you will be able to just fall into His everlasting arms and rest while He takes care of you. It is in His arms that you will learn to trust Him as you listen and allow Him to heal and teach you (Psalms 46:10). In His arms is a place of indescribable comfort and peace. It’s also the place that you no longer allow the lies to confuse you. Once you experience His peace, you will find that clinging to Him through the good times, and the bad, is where you will remain in peace and hope as He fights your battles for you.
What is “fair”?
What I have learned in my 60 years, and in my last decade of deep dive Bible study, is that we were erroneously taught to expect life to be “fair” based on a man-made definition that changed the original meaning of the word fair that God used in His Holy Bible. God says in His Word not to change [add or subtract from] His Word. Any attempt to do so is seen as evil disobedience to Him, and comes with severe consequences.
“Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you. Just obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you.” Deuteronomy 4:2
“18 And I solemnly declare to everyone who hears the words of prophecy written in this book: If anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone removes any of the words from this book of prophecy, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book.” Revelation 22:18-19
Unknowingly people have been taught something that was “re-written” from God’s original meaning and veiled as the “new truth.” As a result, the change of the meaning of this one word has become an obsession. If the enemy can get us to focus on fairness in life, then we won’t focus on what God thinks. Instead of focusing on God and what He tells us to do, we are deceived into focusing on how to play fair, fight fair, be fair, get what’s fair, that you deserve what is fair, and to teach fairness.
Since the time God laid it on my heart to write about this, the word “fair” has popped up constantly in conversations making it glaringly obvious that the world is obsessed with believing they deserve what’s “fair” in life based on the updated definition. The human mind has been conditioned to believe that life should be fair. Such as: it’s not fair that happened to me. It’s not fair that God allowed that person to die. It’s not fair that my marriage is falling apart. It’s not fair that my spouse left me. It’s not fair that my loved one is sick or has special needs. It’s not fair that my child/ren have to suffer. It’s not fair that I didn’t get that job. It’s not fair that I got passed over for the lead position on that serve team at church. It’s not fair that I can’t have what you have. It’s not fair that I can’t have what I want. It’s not fair that I’m poor and they are rich. It’s not fair that nothing seems to go my way, etc.
The original definition of the word fair is an adjective that means:
- Of pleasing appearance, especially because of a pure or fresh quality; comely.
- Light in color, especially blond.
“fair hair.”
- Of light complexion.
“fair skin.”
Somewhere along the line of time, the “dictionary makers” altered the meaning of the word and added their new ideas to the top of the definition listing, thereby pushing the original meaning to the bottom of the description.
Updated man-made definition of fair:
- free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice:a fair decision;
a fair judge.legitimately sought, pursued, done, given, etc.; proper under the rules:a fair fight.moderately large; ample:a fair income.of a light hue; not dark:fair skin.- Synonyms: blond, palepleasing in appearance; attractive:a fair young maiden.Synonyms: lovely, comely, prettyneither excellent nor poor; moderately or tolerably good:fair health.Synonyms: favorable, acceptable, adequate, tolerable, passable
It’s interesting that the synonyms primarily reflect the original meaning of the word. The very last line alludes to the newer meaning.
What is “just”
Throughout scripture we are taught in the original Holy Bible (KJV) that our Creator – Our God is a “just” God; He is the God of Justice. What the world calls “fair” God calls “just” in His Holy Word. Check out the “same” verse in two different Bible translations that tells us He is Just:
“He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” Deuteronomy 32:4 KJV
“He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!” Deuteronomy 32:4 NLT
See how the meaning was changed in translation to other Bibles? They added “fair” to the Word. This is not the only word in the original Holy Bible that God breathed that was altered in meaning.
In Strong’s Concordance Holy Bible reference book it defines “just” as:
“Just” H6662 (Strong)
צַדִּיק
tsaddı̂yq
tsad-deek’
From H6663; just: – just, lawful, righteous (man).
God used the word “fair” to describe beauty.
He used the word “just” describe what is right over 206 times in the Holy Bible.
Your Creator is just and does what is right, always. Even when it’s painful, it is just and right (just right) for you. Trust that He knows what He is doing in your life. Pain is growth. He does not take us around the pain to teach us. He takes us straight through the fires in life to burn off the impurities and things in us that are not fruitful and need to go in order for you to become what He created you to be. Once you can grasp how much He loves you (Ephesians 3:18), then you can look to Him in your pain and know that He is with you and has a purpose for it. Trust Him. Trust His process. There IS purpose in your pain. He will reveal the reason in His perfect timing.
Even the Apostle Paul taught us to glory in our weaknesses (and or pain) so that we can be made perfect in Jesus. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Unlearning the lies about “fair”
So why were we taught as children to be fair as if it were a noun? Something we had to work to achieve and could grasp, and then had to work tirelessly not to lose? We have been deceived that the world’s version of fairness could be obtained. We have been taught to believe that life is fair or unfair. So that would mean by the original definition that life is either beautiful or ugly. In that case, it would make more sense.
In scripture, the word “fair” is mentioned 53 times in the King James Version as it describes beauty. Our pain is certainly not beautiful, it is ugly.
So how do we deal with the ugly?
Recently, I woke up to the aftermath of having survived without major damage from a horrible thunderstorm. During the storm, I thought for sure it had the ability to take us out like it has so many people in horrific storms in the Midwest and Texas. I was thankful I was spared, then my heart immediately went to the those who weren’t spared.
I’m sure many of them are asking God, “why? Why did this happen to me? Why didn’t you prevent it? This isn’t fair!” In the original context of the word fair, it isn’t beautiful, it’s ugly.
As I think back on all the pain and loss I’ve experienced in my life, and survived, I reflect on the lessons learned through those moments. My list of lessons learned is very long. Some I learned the first time, others were hard lessons learned that took a little longer to sink in and hold.
Through each painful lesson, I’ve drawn closer to Jesus and have learned to cling to Him during the beautiful and the ugly so that I’m never alone to fight the ugly in my own strength. It also took me a while to learn not to let go after the ugly storm of pain had subsided. Complete dependence on Jesus to get through life in this ugly world comes with complete peace at all times. Sounds impossible by human standards – having peace at all times, but it’s true. You can’t find real lasting peace in the world, it’s only found in Jesus.
Your Savior, the real Jesus, made you a promise you can stand on.
“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
He warned us in that passage that life will be very ugly for everyone, but not to worry if you cling to Him. He experienced the worst worldly hardships in the flesh and overcame every one of them for us. He came and experienced these things in the flesh so that He could relate to your physical pain and could better comfort you.
Maybe better said: you know how when someone says they understand your pain but have never experienced it, you think to yourself, they have no idea how I feel? Jesus knows. He came in the flesh to experience your fleshly pain so that you would know that He does understand what you are going through so you would allow Him to comfort you.
Scripture says that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). That shouldn’t scare you away from following Jesus. Everyone goes through ugly times in this world. The ones clinging to Jesus can rest in His peace as He fights the battles for them as He teaches you lessons through the experience. Lessons to build your testimony and your faith.
Your soul was not created solely for pleasing your fleshly desires and/or surviving life in this imperfect, painful, broken and fallen world. Scripture says that life on this earth is but a vapor; a blink really, in the context of God’s concept of time. He created us to be on this earth for a determined number of days, some for many days to a ripe old age, while others pass inside the womb, and somewhere in between. Your existence is not about your days in this world, you were created to worship the God of Heaven for eternity outside of this time and place.
As for your daughter, she lived the number of days that were pre-determined by God for her to live. She didn’t pass early, and it wasn’t the drunk driver that took her out; it was God. Consider that He allowed this to happen this way to teach you a particular lesson; ask Him what it is, He will answer you. Be sure to spend time alone with Him to hear the answer. He doesn’t want you angry and bitter, He wants you happy and whole in relationship with Him. Ask Him what He is trying to teach you here. You will most likely need to jot down “all” the things He tells you. I’ve learned to journal what He says so I won’t forget. Once He starts talking in a close relationship with you, you will learn so much on your path to peace.
Learning to cling to God will bring you new perspective. As He helps you look at the bigger picture outside this breath of life you are living, be comforted to know that you are not alone; Jesus is with you every second. Rest in His arms and allow Him to walk you through the beautiful and the ugly moments of human life, knowing that you get to spend an eternity in peace worshipping Him forever. Once you get a new Godly perspective through the eyes of Jesus, these problems appear much smaller than you think they are. Then you will see clearly what is just and right.
What to do first?
Yes, your pain is real, your problems are real and they hurt deeply. Jesus knows and understands. You must trust that He is with you and He is allowing these things to happen to you for a reason for a season.
Drop to your knees and pray.
Wrap all of your painful thoughts in an invisible box, tie it with a bow and lift it up towards the Heavens as if you are literally giving it to Jesus; then let go. Once you have let go, rest in His arms; don’t try to take the box back, open it and put the feelings back on you like a blanket. He has a plan for you; trust Him. Put all your hope in Him. He is working a plan for you that you cannot see. Hold on tight, cling to Him, and trust that He will carry you through this storm too.
And remember, once you are clinging to Jesus, don’t let Him go. No matter what the enemy throws your way, and no matter what test Jesus puts you through, keep cling to your Savior, your Redeemer, your Messiah.
In closing,
Always ask Jesus what you should do in every situation. The Holy Spirit will lead you and guide you. If it’s not okay with Him, He will check your spirit and you will have an uneasy feeling and doubt about going forward. Always follow Jesus; NOT your heart; our hearts are fickle and can’t be trusted. Listen to the Holy Spirit; He is trying to protect you. You have a choice to obey or ignore. Choose to obey and stay under His protection.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Jeremiah 17:9
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.“
Proverbs 3:5
“When you know you grow!”