He does not punish us for all our sins; he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. [Psalm 103:10-12 (NLT)]
After being asked, “How different would the world look if everyone got what they deserved?” I started wondering. Even as a child, I knew people didn’t get what they deserved. When I was ten, I watched on television as nine black students tried to enroll in an all-white school in Little Rock, Arkansas; they were blocked by the National Guard and an angry mob of 400 angry whites. Two years earlier, on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman. I grew up in Detroit and, while discrimination and segregation were more subtle than in the South, it existed. I lived in a large home with a big yard on a tree-lined street but any bus trip “downtown” told me that the people of color didn’t live in neighborhoods like mine. There may not have been “colored” drinking fountains or “white only” bathrooms but there was a six-foot high, one-foot wide, and half-mile long wall segregating one black community from a neighboring white one. Many other invisible and more impenetrable walls existed within our divided city.
I knew no one deserved prejudice, discrimination, hate, injustice, or poverty. I saw that my color gave me advantages that I hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve. Seeing no black or brown children at my dance classes, theater school, sleep-away camp, or private boarding school, I was thankful that I’d been born a white girl in America and that my father had a good job so that I had those opportunities. I knew I lived a better life than did most people of color in my country and, regardless of their race, many of the people in the rest of the world. Having done nothing to deserve my advantages, I also knew that I was no more worthy than anyone else; I wasn’t smarter, nicer, prettier, more talented, or more valuable than any other little girl. I wasn’t better—I simply was more fortunate.
I’m not sure what the rest of the world would look like if everyone got what they deserved, but my first thought was that Detroit would probably look a whole lot better than it does right now. Then I remembered that the Christian way isn’t giving everyone exactly what they deserve. It’s not an eye for an eye or a slur for a slur. It’s not blows and counterblows, attack and reprisal, or forgiving only if we’ve been forgiven. It’s not helping only those worthy of help, squaring accounts, or turning the tables. It’s turning the other cheek, helping the undeserving, forgiving the reprehensible, loving the unlovable, accepting apologies, and burying the hatchet. It’s helping, healing, sharing, and loving as we would have done to us. Rather than evening the score, Christ’s way is going the extra mile, bearing no malice, and praying for our persecutors. It’s being as merciful to others as God is to us.
When asked how they’re doing, some people reply, “Better than I deserve.” The answer may be a bit of a cliché but it’s true. Just as I’ve done nothing to deserve the advantages my heritage gave me, mankind has done absolutely nothing to be deserving of God’s blessings. As recipients of God’s unmerited grace, we all have gotten more than we deserve (our salvation) and, as recipients of God’s mercy, we haven’t gotten what we do deserve (God’s punishment)! Certainly, God didn’t give us what we deserved when Jesus paid the penalty for our sins!
Upon second thought, I realize that, if everyone got only what they deserved, Detroit would look different but not any better (and probably worse). While a great many of the bad things that happened to me were undeserved, a far greater number of good things were undeserved, as well. If everyone got only what they deserved, my life would be nowhere as pleasant and comfortable as it is. Moreover, since salvation is undeserved, I wouldn’t even have eternal life at the end! The world won’t improve if everyone gets exactly what they deserve. It’s not until we give everyone better than what they deserve that the world will truly change for the better.
God bestows His blessings without discrimination. The followers of Jesus are children of God, and they should manifest the family likeness by doing good to all, even to those who deserve the opposite. [F.F. Bruce]
Devotions of the Heart 