God's Not Fair

I found this little story this morning looking for something else, but wanted to share.  This story is 6 years old, which means it happened when my oldest daughter was almost the age my baby daughter is now.  Maybe I'm sentimental because she just had her 10th birthday, maybe I'm just proud of her......yes.

We rushed to McDonald’s late on Monday morning.  We’d seen a commercial announcing My Little Pony as the newest Happy Meal toys.  This is big news and we have to go immediately.  I never really know what it is that causes me to rush to a restaurant I don’t particularly enjoy to buy a meal with a toy I later have to pull from the toy box so it can join its many cousins in the garbage.  I would guess it has something to do with the state of my heart as I follow a curly ponytail bounding up to the plastic case of Happy Meal toys to see what’s available.  I love these trips because it’s so easy to make her happy.  The temporary thrill of the toy and the french fries makes for fun talks.   This day she had settled into her meal, having unwrapped and named her pony already. 

She looks out the window, holding a chicken nugget in her one freckle hand.  She asks me a question that is not new, “Why am I always bad?”  I’ve begun to recognize this question that comes up when she’s feeling remorseful.  In this case it was probably the plastic crocodile swung into Jacob Schooler’s eye the night before.  Always before my answer comes quickly to this delightful daughter, “You’re not bad, honey!  You sometimes make bad choices.”  This typically alleviates her guilt and we move on.  Today, I decided to see where this road might take us, so I smile and say nothing.  She shifts her gaze to me, with raised eyebrows and tilted head, her one freckle hand dropping at the wrist.  I see her recognition that I’ve missed my line.  I ask her what she means and she elaborates on her frustration that she often doesn’t do right.  We talk about how hard it is to be good all the time.  I understand her frustration and share it on a daily basis.  I encourage her by telling her how blessed we are to be loved by a God who is perfect, but loves us even when we aren’t.  She begins to wind down our conversation with this little mind-blower; “God’s perfect.....long pause.....and that’s not fair to us!”  I have found myself in this location in Parent-land on occasion.  Many pious parents recognize this place.  All of a sudden I’ve been knocked off my pedestal and find myself lying on my back gasping for theological air.  My emotions bounce from anger at her heresy to admiration of her honesty.  As I catch my breath and stuff a few fries in my mouth so I can’t talk with my mouth full, I hear His reassurance. “What a treasure!” He whispers to my heart, “she’s only 4 and she knows she can’t do it without Me.”  I spend a few minutes telling her about Jesus’ example and God’s great love for her.  She grins as her frustration evaporates in the warmth of knowing she’s loved by God and mom.  And so we move on to topics safer for my pedestal sitting, ponies.

“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord!” 

Romans 7:18b-20, 21, 24-25