Fairness...

My house is a very, very, very loud house. lol!
Well, let me not be so dramatic. My house isn't always loud, but my children do keep things lively. From the time their little eyes pop open in the morning until they go to sleep at night, they are almost obsessed with this strange notion we like to call "fairness".
They are just under twenty months apart, with Matthew being the oldest, but that doesn't matter to them. In their minds and in their little hearts, they are the same.
Never mind they aren't the same age.
Never mind they aren't the same gender.
Never mind they don't have the same needs, temperaments, desires, habits or learning style.
They wake up every morning with the expectation that everything in their two worlds will be the same.
Same drinks.
Same toys.
Same food.
Same snacks.
Same punishments.
And if there's ever any difference, they both suddenly become lawyers and immediately file an appeal with the judicial court of Motherhood.
MAMA!!! Caitlyn has a cookie and I don't!
It doesn't matter that he had three before she even had her one cookie.
All they can see is what the one has and the other doesn't have.
Hmm.
This morning when the Lord dropped this word "fairness" into my heart and told me to write about it, I wasn't sure where He was going with it.
Now the light is starting to come on a little bit.
We are all His children.
He loves us all equally, indeed.
But He does not treat us all the same.
When it comes to life, fairness at some point has to give way to justice.
There is a difference.
The bible has many examples of things that weren't necessarily fair, but they were just.
It wasn't fair that Jacob, the younger, should receive the birthright over his brother Esau. But when Esau's heart was examined, it was clear that it was a just decision by Almighty God.
When the people saw King Saul, they saw a handsome and strong looking leader. But God rejected him because inwardly, he was a rebellious coward. It wasn't fair that he would be dethroned by a ruddy, fresh faced shepherd boy, but it was just.
There are so many things we can look at in life and shout out,"God, that's not fair!!"
Why is she married and I'm not?
Why do they have children and we don't?
Why did my loved one die and theirs didn't?
Why did I lose my home and they didn't?
Why did they get the job and I didn't?
How is that fair?
I can understand my children's frustration at times.
All they can see is their little perspectives.
But my job is to teach them how to trust my judgement, even when they can't understand it.
My job as mom is to make sure they understand that it is not their place to challenge me and to tell me what I should do for them or to assume that they will both receive the same thing all the time.
They are not the same. They have different needs. They are of two different maturity levels and I have two different levels of expectation for both of them.
Fairness only considers what you have or don't have at the moment.
Rarely, if ever does it consider what you've already been given.
So the next time you feel like looking up towards heaven and telling God that something isn't fair, I hope that you'll pause and think of my two little children.
Imagine them running around the house, both having all of their needs met, a loving mom watching over them and with all of that, still finding the need to point out where things appear to them to be different and unfair.
Stop your whining. Realize how good you've got it in the grand scheme of things.
No, you don't have what someone else has right now.
You may have already had more than they ever did.
God is not a fair God. He is a just God.
Trust His judgement.
He is for you, whether you think that's fair or not.