I saw something else under the sun. The race isn’t won by fast runners, or the battle by heroes. Wise people don’t necessarily have food. Intelligent people don’t necessarily have riches, and skilled people don’t necessarily receive special treatment. But time and unpredictable events overtake all of them. No one knows when his time will come. Like fish that are caught in a cruel net or birds caught in a snare, humans are trapped by a disaster when it suddenly strikes them. [Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 (GW)]

Let’s face it: life’s not fair. Sometimes we’re fortunate and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes good things happen to bad people and, too often, bad things happen to the good. Free me, oh Lord, from the false expectation that life will always be fair. And please, Lord, don’t let the inequities of life keep me from believing in and serving you.

“It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“Fair? … There is nothin’ fair in a broken world full of broken people. Justice tries to be fair, but fails at every turn. There is never anything fair about grace or forgiveness. Punishment never restores fair. Confession doesn’t make things fair. Life is not about granting the fair reward for the right performance. Contracts, lawyers, disease, power, none of these care about fair. Better to take dead words out of your language, maybe focus on living words like mercy and kindness and forgiveness and grace. You might stop being so concerned about your rights and what you think is fair.” [From “Cross Roads” by Wm. Paul Young]