F is for Fairness (where we find rest)

My confession is that all this week I’ve struggled.

How do we have a heart for the lost yet rest our head at night and hope somehow to sleep? How do we glimpse at the reality of hell and still go to the store and buy our bananas, business as usual? How do I continue to live my affluent American life while hundreds of thousands of souls are dying without Christ?

It’s messing with me.

My whole life mantra has been the Sacred Mundane and yet how can this mundane really be right when unspeakable atrocities are taking place in our world? I read the prayer requests that flood into my inbox. Cancer, pain, death, sorrow.

Oh Lord Jesus. This world… I pray but the reality sweeps over me and settles and it just feels crushing. Heavy.

And in the midst of it I am still myself. This flesh flares up and I snap at my children and despise how I look and let trivialities steal my joy.

The weight of our world’s sorrow and my own sinfulness feels unbearable.

I tell myself it’s jet lag.

But really it’s deeper. And I don’t see it clear until I turn the final pages of Grudem’s abbreviated theology text. Of course, every practical problem is simply an outworking of errant theology.  We always act and feel according to what we believe. And who would have thought that the most comforting, encouraging thing in the world would be a chapter on Final Judgment?

Did you know that God is absolutely fair?

“The final judgment will take place so that God can display His glory to all mankind by demonstrating His justice and mercy simultaneously. The final judgment will be entirely fair. Each person, whether destined for eternal glory or eternal condemnation, will be dealt with more fairly at the final judgment than at any previous time…

The final judgment assures us that regardless of what happens God is in control and will eventually bring about a right end to every situation…” (131)

This is where freedom comes. This is where the yoke of Jesus becomes light. It is light because the responsibility to “sort things out” does not fall on our shoulders.

Ever.

Does that strike anyone else as gloriously freeing? If I am wronged, God sees it. If Christians are persecuted and even murdered for their faith, I should pray for them and support them, but I can also rest in knowing that God will deal with them fairly and bless them for their suffering. For those who are undergoing tremendous physical suffering I can pray for them and help wherever I can, but rest in knowing that God will someday wipe every tear from their eye and welcome them to glory where there is no pain and suffering.

Can I tell you how amazing this is? Finally there are happy tears in my eyes. The world’s weight belongs nowhere near our shoulders. How funny that we should ever think we are in any condition to bear it…

My prayer for you this weekend?

Rest for your souls. May you find it, resting in His fairness.

{Bless your weekend and thanks, as always, for reading.}