Life is not fair. Some are pretty:\; some are not. Some are tall; others are short. Some are born into wealthy homes; some are are not. Some are born with a keen mind; some are not. (And some get dumber every day!)
Somewhere we have taken the idea that America is the land of opportunity and made it into the land of equal opportunity. It is not. It is a place where you can work hard and make what you earn. It will be much harder for some people than others to do so.
One of my college professors (Educational Psychology) told us students the story of a young man at the university who was carrying a better than B average. This young man was mentally impaired but studied seventeen hours (including class time) each day. He was either in class, the library or sleeping (and he wasn't doing much sleeping!) I never forgot that story. He was driven to become a college graduate. He had a tremendous disadvantage but he didn't let it stop him.
The make things more unequal every time we try to make things equal. We simply can't admit that determination is as unequal as every other environmental or genetic trait.
Think about it. Should I ask really tall guys to play basketball on their knees so that I can have an equal opportunity to play with them? What would that do to the game of basketball? What does knowing that others had to accept an unnatural disadvantage so that I could play do to me?
The disadvantages and advantages that we face help make us who we are. They are known by God who does not use them as His means of choosing who will do something great. In fact, God seems to choose the ones who have the greatest disadvantage to do His greatest works.
He chose a man who could not speak well to lead His people out the oppression of Egypt. He chose the least likely of Jesse's sons to become the king of Judah and Israel. He chose the loud, brash, impulsive Peter to head His Church. God seems to relish the disadvantages because they reveal more clearly what He can do.
I remember hearing a man say that he couldn't go to college because he had to go to work. I guess he thinks that work and college are incompatible. I had to do both. I drove a city bus while I was in seminary. I got up often at 4:30 AM. Sometimes I had studied until 2:00 AM. I would go to my first stop with the driver's window open so that the wind would blow fiercely in my face and keep me awake until I picked up my first passengers. I didn't think I had a silver spoon in my mouth as I did this. After driving again in the evening I would also work for my father-in-law, deliver phone books and Sears catalogs and deliver advertising fliers for a local Christian bookstore. (Yes, all this work affected my grades. I believed that taking care of my family was more important than grades. The one who doesn't provide for his on family is worse than an unbeliever. I don' t know exactly what that means but I know it isn't good.)
It was through my financial disadvantage that God showed me His grace.
Yes indeed, life is not fair. Praise God!
2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)
9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
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