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Life isn't fair. We all know that.
6 August 2010
"Sometimes you step off the kerb, and get knocked down by a bus".[1] These were the parting words of the former BP chief executive Tony Hayward as he left the company where he had spent his entire career. Commenting on this unfortunate departure, his successor Bob Dudley added, "Whether it is fair or not is not the point. The fact is that life isn't fair. We all know that". The grieving families, the local tradesmen, the environmentalists and creation itself know that. They have all been hit by a bus.
There is indeed something very random about life. While we would love to discover a sense of orderliness and coherence, life seems pretty incoherent and chaotic at times. The connection between our actions and the results appear to be missing. At times, we may conclude, like the author of Ecclesiastes, that everything has lost meaning (1:2).
This is not a blunt, cynical, response to the crisis created when he recognised life's vanity and inequity. Rather, it is a valuable contemplation of a mature thinker.
Life isn't fair. This is a bitter reality in the human experience. The apostle Paul portrays the struggle in this world and in the Christian community in Romans 8. Creation is groaning and so are the people of God. Life is tough. We all know that. But Paul also knows something beyond this common knowledge. Following his reflections on life's suffering, groaning, and inherent weakness, he adds a subsequent "we know that…".
"We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (8:28). And here is where the Christian experience and knowledge become distinctive. Like the BP executives we know that life is not fair. But the Christian carries a conviction that such common knowledge of life is superseded by a greater truth of heaven.
In his letters, Paul uses the phrase "we know that" to introduce commonly recognised truth. The idea that "all things work for good" has parallels in philosophical and Jewish literature. Joseph's story is a classic example that God uses suffering for his overruling purposes. Joseph stepped off the proverbial kerb and was knocked down by his brothers who sold him to merchants on their way to Egypt. Life takes us on surprising trajectories. While Joseph knows that life isn't fair, he also knows the transformative capacity of a just and purposeful God. While his brothers intended to harm him, God intended it for good: "to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Gen. 50:20).
"All things work together for good" literally refers to "all things". When life is neither good nor fair, we have a person to turn to. We have a rich body of literature that resonates with, and gives expression to, our laments. We have an advocate who appeals for us and we can make our own appeal to the one who can restore and redeem. And so we know that the painful contractions in life are placed within God's overarching purpose.
Marijke Hoek, Coordinator Forum for Change
CULTURE-FOOTPRINT The Forum for Change initiative brings together Christians who are working in the arts, politics, media, education, sports and business. It's a place to tackle the issues involved in living a faithful Christian life.
The Forum publishes a fortnightly Culture Footprint, featuring an individual who is living out their faith in a secular context. It is sometimes funny, always interesting and often challenging. To get the Culture Footprint delivered to your inbox click on Culture Footprint and register online.
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(The views below are the authors', and not necessarily those of the Evangelical Alliance.)
| Written by Dele Oke on 11 August 2010 at 01.40 |
| And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. Rm. 8:28 (NASB) Marijke talks of 'God's overarching purpose' and John of the good God has 'purposed for me by it?' Both views embrace the thought that God intended the 'unfairness in life' we all witness or partake in. As we observe the calamities in the world today: children dying of starvation; corrupt rulers leading nations into misery and poverty, can we really attribute all this to 'God's overarching purpose' for those who are reaping the consequences of choices made by others? Reading the gospels paints a very different story. The letter of James further elaborates the fact that the choices others make can affect us all (James 5:1-6). Life is complicated. God's word is also vast. We observe tensions in certain parts of the scripture which reflect the reality of life. The structures of injustice and unfairness are built by the hardness of human hearts. God can turn things around for good, but this does not propose that he engineered the unfairness in the first place. |
| Written by John Peel on 06 August 2010 at 16.59 |
| I am in full agreement with Marijke's comments. Clearly Paul, by his "we know" statement indicates that he and his team had proved God's Word through the bad times as well as the good and is encouraging us to do likewise. What concerns me is that this is so often taken to mean some sort of stoical endurance whereby we grit out teeth and wait for God to do something amazing and turn our pig sty into a palace. I'm not saying here that we have to give God a helping hand. Among the many other examples of Scripture the most casual glace at Abraham's life warns us against that! However I have heard so many counter this interventionist tendency by quoting Rom 8:28 and in doing so imply that inactivity is being advocated when in fact the opposite is true. Our English translations of Rom 8:28 seem to all but uniformly present, as it were, God on one side working on, in or through our "things" of life and us on the other side awaiting the outcome. In the Greek text however Paul uses the word "sunergei", from the word "sunergos" which means a fellow worker, collaborator or associate as in Rom 16:3, 9, 21. In 2 Cor 1:24 it is translated, "we work with you". The word basically means to share enegries with, to co-operate. God does not co-operate with "things", he regulates and directs them. The only thing in Rom 8:28 that God can work of share energies with, is us! I think therefore that a better and more poignant translation would be; "In everything God works together with those he loves and has called according to his purpose, for good". It's a bit clumsy but better reflects Paul's intent. When troubles come we are not to wait or simply watch but rather co-operate with God. That choice on our part is vital to our experiencing the good that God intends to work in and for us. Instead of our saying, "Ok God, you got me into this now what are you going to do to get me out of it", we should be saying, "Lord, in the midst of the unfairness of life I still trust you, show me how to glorify you in it and purposefully walk with you through it into all the good you have purposed for me by it?" |
| Written by David Young on 06 August 2010 at 13.25 |
| No, you don't. You have a myth which is invoked whenever something good or bad happens. Step back from it and ask, 'What is the difference between what this myth says about intervention in the world and nothing at all?' and you'll see that the idea of all things working together for good is meaningless. |
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Subject: Politics | Suffering
Author: Hoek, Marijke
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