The Unlucky One (Or life’s not fair)

“It’s not fair.”

“I’m really unlucky.”

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

“I didn’t deserve this.”

“Why is all this happening to me?”

“There must not be a God or else this wouldn’t have happened.”

We’ve all had these types of thoughts when bad things happen. What are we to make of this and how do we deal with it? How could a benevolent God allow bad things to happen?

Perhaps the answer lies in comparing our (i.e. humanities) viewpoint of life events with God’s perspective. Let’s start with some examples in Biblical history of people’s response when good things have happened to them:

• Adam and Eve. They were given everything – the Garden of Eden, paradise, everything they needed (except clothes). And yet, they were not appreciative, they wanted more.
• The Israelites in the Exodus story. They had just been rescued from slavery. The Red Sea had been parted for them. And yet when Moses was up on Mt. Sinai receiving the Commandments from God, the Israelites made a golden calf and started worshipping it. They were not whole-heartedly pleased with God, they wanted more.
• King David. He was king of Israel and according to 1 Chronicles 3, he had at least 6 wives (plus concubines) before taking the wife of another man and marrying Bathsheba. Hadn’t he ever heard of using the 7^th day for rest? Once again, a case of man not being totally satisfied and wanting more.

So when we’ve been given a lot, we continue to look for more. Just giving things to people does not help build character. In fact, it may do the opposite. Consider this:

• Kids who are given everything they ask for become ‘spoiled’. Not fun to babysit.
• We have more appreciation for that which we’ve worked for and earned.
• We learn more through experience than just being fed information. In medical school parlance, seeing more patients is considered ‘learning opportunities’.
• Painful as it may be, we learn more through our mistakes.

If we examine the human condition from God’s perspective, we realize that we inherited an imperfect world with Adam and Eve’s fall. But by going through hard times, we will truly appreciate it when we receive our eternal heavenly reward. At that point, we will be fully satisfied and will not need to repeat Adam and Eve’s mistake of seeking the tree of knowledge (although the slow learners among us will probably make the same mistake).

Now when we are suffering hard times, this stance may seem to be awfully harsh from a ‘good’ God. Before we run too far with this train of thought, we should reflect on what Christ may have been thinking at His crucifixion:

It may have been ‘this is not fair’ or ‘I didn’t deserve this’.

But it may also have been:

‘They’re really going to appreciate this someday.’

I suspect it’s this second thought that helped sustain Him through His ordeal.

It should sustain us too.

A final thought:

In the late 1960’s, Walter Mischel at Stanford University conducted an experiment on young children. The children were each given a marshmallow. If the child ate it immediately, they would only get the one marshmallow. However, if they could wait a few minutes before eating it, they would get a second marshmallow. What they found was that the children who could delay gratification were more successful later in life.

Next time… some more thoughts on willpower.