What does it Matter? Life's Not Fair

Trials and persecution. I wrote a series about this facet of our lives. One of the things I stressed was that it would happen to anyone whether that person lived a good life or not. Indeed we all know that life's just not fair.

But how often have we heard (at least on the television) people use that expression as an excuse to justify their injustices towards others? Apparently since life is full of suffering already, it doesn't matter if we should add more suffering into the mix.

So here's a radical life principle - just because suffering is bound to come to the believer, doesn't mean it should come from within the church. The Bible uses the imagery of a family to describe a church quite often. Now I would at least hope that within your own family, you would not be willing to add to the suffering simply because they're going to suffer anyway.

Now of course, I'm sure few Christians would either decide to intentionally hurt others in order to advance their own selfish desires or to push others down to build themselves up. But it seems all too easy from my experience to do so unintentionally. In my life, it comes as a complete desire to be right, causing me to unfortunately pummel straight through any conflicting theory and its owner.

But it can come in other ways too. You see, we can attack each other selfishly without even necessarily knowing we are doing anything wrong. Thus, we must take time to evaluate our behaviour to see how we would be feeling if we were in the opposite position.

Now of course there are situations in which we just can't help but hurt somebody else. Our obligations to ourselves, to our family, or to the Lord force us to act in a way that is sure to cause emotional agony for someone else. In these situations, the only thing you can do is try to be as direct and delicate as possible.

Hurt feelings might not seem like a significant issue, but this phenomena is not limited to hurt feelings. Indeed we are discussing a number of areas where people can so easily hurt others, but the truth is, we won't do much good fighting the enemy, if we are instead fighting each other.

We will be able to do more to protect ourselves as a unified force than every man for himself. Take for instance, during the time of Esther, when the Jews had to fight for their lives. Naturally, the Lord protected them, as He would us today. But they still had to prepare to fight.

Each man did not protect his own family of his own might either. Rather, the Jews came together to fight as a unit. Esther 9:2 proclaims,

"The Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, to lay hand on such as sought their hurt: and no man could withstand them; for the fear of them fell upon all people."

Look at how effective unity can be. But then we all know that it is not easy to work with someone who manipulated his way into a position that you think you deserve (I know not really Christian behavior on either side there). Nor is it easy to work with someone that you know you have unnecessarily hurt at some point in your life.

So with that, I ask simply, let's strive to not cause suffering to other members of the family of God, but instead to do the exact opposite. As the Bible commands in Philippians 2:1-4,

"If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

NATO, an Entangling Alliance

In his First Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson advocated,

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

Mr. Jefferson fears that if the interests of the nation become so enshrined with out own, they may well divert resources away from our own interests, or even compromise our own national interests for the sake of another country.

He argues instead that we should offer equal friendship to all nations. Of course, nations like North Korea and Cuba will refuse said friendship, but that doesn't mean we should form an alliance with their enemies to curb a threat.

Yet with the former threat of the Soviet Union, we did just that. Indeed, the United States entered into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to keep the Soviet Union at bay. If NATO isn't an entangling alliance, then I don't think anything would ever qualify.

Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty stipulates that if there is an attack on one country in the alliance, all other countries must act as if they were the country which had been attacked. The typical argument from journalists and legal scholars alike is that this provision could bring the United States to armed conflict although NATO leaves it within the power of each individual country to decide what type of assistance it deems necessary. Nevertheless the United States would be compelled to assist in some way.

Thus, even if our national security is not at stake, or if our national security would be better served by supporting the attacking party, we must work and spend our resources to protect the interests of our ally in NATO. Jefferson would have been appalled. This is the definition of an entangling alliance, pulling us into conflicts we don't belong and letting the security of other countries, whether democratic or tyrannical, subvert our own.

This alliance has the capacity to cause us great harm. Unless of course, we have no intention of fulfilling our obligations. In which case, why do we bother to be in it in the first place?