I’m a duplicitous man.

I say one thing and mean another.

I think that some how I am better than the others around me.

I deserve more. I am entitled to more. I am special and therefore warrant special attention. I demand justice and cry mercy.

That I am a sinner is not open to question; it’s an easy character trait for all to agree on. Yet despite this reality, I believe that I should not be treated this way, that I should be exempt from what I have sown.

My buddy Tim recently wrote about an encounter that he and his wife had with a psychotic driver. As fate would have it, Tim was also able to witness as this moronic driver was promptly pulled over.

I smiled as I read that. Oh the number of times that I have wished for a cop to be around when you need them; around to see the horrific actions of others that demand switch and unyielding justice. You secretly wish for them to be stuck down where they stand; and when you witness it, you are filled with a smug satisfaction.

Smug.

Maybe that’s a better word for me. Self-righteously complacent.

It’s not a new idea. Growing up with 3 sisters I’ve always had this inbreed idea of justice; that desire for retribution and punishment. But I’ve always wanted that for others and never for myself.

I am the man who has been forgiven a debt of a great sum, yet seeks to beat my brother and imprison him for owing me pennies.

I rationalize it.

It’s for their own good. How ever will they learn to do the right things if they are not taught, and that teaching needs to come from consequences.

Don’t misread that. There is truth in that. Is that not the process in which we train our children? Do we not spank or ground, or time out? Do we not, out of their own best interest, punish our children in an effort to train them in the way that they should go? Do we not believe that our actions will help them be better people in the long run? In order to grow people need to get what they deserve in order to be better people.

But that’s not for me. The mere fact that I’ve acknowledged my shortcomings should be enough for anyone. My rational mind is far superior to those that run rampant and uncontrolled. Grace and mercy; I should be spared.

It’s an interesting dilemma: Grace and mercy vs. justice.

Without the hope of justice, what happens to our society? If there are no consequences for our actions, then do we not break down into anarchy? There must be punishment. For the man who has suffered injury, where is his compensation? Does he not just remain a victim without hope of restoration? All are lost if there is no justice.

Yet that having been said, if we all received what was just and fair we would all be blind and dead. If we got what we deserved then none would go unmaimed. There would be no one left to punish us because we are all guilty.

There must be a balance of grace and mercy. You cannot crush a person at every step and expect them to grow. You must offer clemency. If there are no second chances, then we are all lost.

But this brings me back to the first argument. If anyone can do anything and merely cry “mercy, mercy” to avoid consequences are we not back to chaos?

Sometimes I run my mind in circles. I obsess. I look for that fine line of balance between all things and try to exert wisdom in every thing.

I fail often.

I think I fail most often because I am looking for the fair thing to do.

Life isn’t always fair (as my mother used to say). But believe it or not, God isn’t always fair.

Yeah. That’s right, I said it. God is unfair.

See in a fair world all of our balances would zero out at the end of the day. For every good their would be a reward equal to that good, and for every bad there would be a reward equal to that bad. We’d get what we had coming for better or for worse.

But thankfully God is graceful. I do not receive a reward equal to my good (for if I did, I would realize how futile some of my efforts are) but rather one that is far greater than I deserve. I do not receive what I deserve for all my sins and short comings; instead I receive the love of his son who died that I might live.

Is that fair? Not by any means, but yet that is what God has offered me.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but when did God ever claim to make sense?

God’s Own Fool – Michael Card

Seems I’ve imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God’s Holy wisdom is foolish to men
He must have seemed out of His mind

For even His family said He was mad
And the priest say a demon’s to blame
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane

Chorus
We in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
And we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God’s own fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable
Come be a fool as well

So come lose our life for a carpenter’s son
For a man who had died for a dream
And you’ll feel the faith His first followers had
And you’ll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say I believe
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see

Chorus

So we follow God’s own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable, come be a fool as well

God offers us both Grace and Justice equally to all regardless of our own goodness or sinfulness. We have all the same equal chance to experience the same unfair grace, and the same equal chance to suffer the more than just justice that he has to offer.

It doesn’t always make sense and it’s not always easy. But that’s the way of things. God offers his grace to us freely and as often as we need it, how then can we not extend the same thing to our fellow man?
I worry sometimes that if I live the way God calls me to that I will be walked on, taken advantage of and given the short end of the stick.

But in the grand scheme of things, I always come out with more than I deserve.

So in a word, thanks Tim for that reminder.