Job is sort of a drama queen.

What I mean by that is for someone who is doing all the right things because God is quite pleased with him [Job 1:8, Job 2:3], and when he loses his cattle, his children, is covered with boils and his wife tells him to “curse God and die,” [Job 2:9]

She actually says that!  Boy, I would not want to answer to God for saying that!  Whew.

“And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne… And the dead were judged …according to what they had done.”   Revelation 20:12

But I digress, back to Job.  When all of this happens in his life, Job curses his birth.  He rants about how he wishes he wasn’t born, he curses the day his mother got pregnant and wishes he would have been stillborn. [Job 3]

That gets old.  Listening to someone complain about how they wish they wouldn’t have been born, that they wish God would just crush them.

I have friends who are Christians; they make good choices, go to church and raise their children to love the Lord.  But when the going gets tough they bail.  They blame God and curse the day they were born.  They whine and cry about how hard things are and that it’s just not fair.

But what is fair?

Should a robber be pardoned because the punishment is to pay with their time for what they’ve taken?  Should murderers receive amnesty because the punishment for their crimes is death?

No, of course not.  They deserve the punishment because they did the crime.

I have a friend who lived a life of terrible abuse.  He suffered both physically and mentally, enduring terrible pain and shameful ridicule.  His body revealed the physical torment he endured and people still talk about the heartache and loneliness he experienced.

I can’t imagine living his life or feeling the hate he experienced.  The struggle he lived was intense and unimaginable.  I know he wished he didn’t have to live it, wished his life was different and even asked God to take it away… but God didn’t.

My friend died.

Was it fair?  By our standards no, but God had a plan.  God knew that my friend had to endure this hardship in his life to be an example to others and for God’s ultimate plan for good.

My friend lived a perfect life and died because I deserved it, not him.

Are the struggles we experience fair?  In our minds, no.  But was it fair for Jesus to experience the heartache and pain He lived through?

And He did it willingly.

He did it for you.

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”   1 John 4:10

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”   John 3:16