Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? – Hebrews 12:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 27, 2015): Hebrews 12

About three years ago I ran across an article in Forbes that ran the title “Life isn’t Fair – Deal with It.” I am so glad that the author (Mike Myatt) was willing to write the article – I can’t tell you how often I have wanted to tell people exactly that. But one comment in the article has stuck with me. Myatt writes this – “In business, in politics, and in life, most of us are beneficiaries of the outcomes we have contributed to. Our station in life cannot, or at least should not, be blamed on our parents, our teachers, our pastors, our government, or our society – it’s largely based on the choices we make, and the attitudes we adopt.”

First, let me say what I believe that Myatt is not saying. As his title says, life isn’t fair. It just isn’t. There is no fairness that allows me to sit in the comfort of my office churning out articles while my counterparts in other areas of the world are worried about what they are going to eat next. My biggest problem with regard to food is often “How can I convince my family to go to Pizza Hut for supper?” But I definitely recognize that on a worldwide basis, I am clearly in the minority. There is absolutely nothing that I have done to deserve all that I possess. And that is exactly what I need to remember the next time I am tempted even a little to complain about why some people have more than I do. I am blessed.

But what Myatt is saying is that the situations that we find ourselves in, more often than we sometimes want to believe, are constructed by us, they are circumstances of our own creation. And I really wish that we could understand that. People are not naturally against us, our attitudes drive them to be that way. Sometimes the depth of our poverty is because of the things that we have done with the money that we do have (I often quote Dave Ramsay and his comment that “poor people do poor people things.”) The state of our health is often more about the things that we decide to put into our bodies, or the lack of care that we have for our bodies, than it is about the unfairness of life – and I write this knowing that I suffer from chronic illness that has nothing to do with me, but things could be so much better if I would make certain health decisions in my own life. The choices that we make have a very distinct effect on the way that our lives work out. But too often we refuse to see that. We begin to think that we are helpless to change the way that our lives are –and since we are helpless, there is no need to change our behavior. And that is just stupid.

Hebrews simply says it this way, understand that the hardship in your life are a form of discipline. A loving parent will always discipline their children. They do it to change the behavior of the child so that the child can one day be a success. God’s reasons are no different. The truth is that we learn much more through our hardships than we will ever learn from our successes. And if we never struggle, we will never learn exactly what it takes from us to be a success in life – no matter how unfair that life may sometimes seem.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hebrews 13