I’ve never liked hearing, “That’s not fair!” Fortunately, my kids never said that very often.

Those words feel more like an accusation than merely a complaint. It’s a statement that seems to call into question my motives. If nothing else, it’s a statement that’s just not even relevant. Who said life was supposed to be fair, right? We’ve all heard or said that before.

Okay, confession time. I don’t say “that’s not fair!”, but my perspective on life is often laced with that attitude. When things don’t go according to my plan, I can question God’s motives and character. I wonder whether He’s really good toward me. Oh, He may be good toward others, but me? If He was good, why would He be allowing me to go through ______________?

In John 9, we meet a man who was born blind. I can’t imagine the pain a parent goes through after discovering their child has been born blind. It doesn’t just have to be blindness though. It could be some other type of physical or mental disability. One child is born healthy, but another is born blind. It’s not fair. Why would God do that?

The disciples asked Jesus who was to blame for the man’s blindness. Was it him or his parents who sinned?

Interesting how we always want to assign blame. I’m guilty of it all the time. In the case of the blind man though, Jesus said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

You know the rest of the story. Jesus spits on the ground, makes a little mud pie, puts it on the guy’s eyes and after he washes the mud off he can see! What a cool story. A blind man is given his sight. For the first time in his life, he can see a blue sky, green grass and the faces of his own parents. Awesome!

Hold on a minute though. Let’s rewind for a minute. This guy was born blind. As an adult, he was a professional beggar because it’s all he could do to support himself. And why was he born blind? “So that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

Born blind. Forced into being a beggar. So that one day Jesus could come along and heal him and bring glory to God.

Ah, that doesn’t seem very fair to me. Does it to you? This poor guy didn’t do anything to deserve being born blind. God set it up, so He’d one day receive glory from it. No way the blind guy could have known that though. All he knew was that other people could see and he couldn’t. I’m sure it didn’t seem fair.

So what if we just acknowledge that, no, in fact it wasn’t fair. It’s also not fair that some people are superior athletes and some are born with physical disabilities that mean they’ll never even walk. It’s not fair that some people live in extreme luxury and others will die of hunger today. No, it’s not fair.

What if we changed our perspective though? What if we stopped looking for fairness and started looking for God?

What would that mean for your current financial situation? Or medical issue? Or family crisis? Could it mean that God wants to display His glory in your life?

What if rather than complaining about the circumstances we don’t like and would like to see God remove…we began to look for how God was in the midst of them, displaying His work to us and those who are watching?

Is God fair? It’s not really the right question, is it?

Will God be faithful to display His work in my life? That’s the right question…and the answer is always “yes.”