When the Bible talks about "the rain falling on the just and the unjust," it reminds us that the weather is pretty much standard procedure for everyone. When the Bible tells us that "God is no respecter of persons," it teaches us that His love extends to every category of humankind. When the Bible warns that "whatsoever we sow we shall also reap," it calls our attention to the fact that we all live by the same set of rules. If we learn anything from the Bible about God, it is His perfect impartiality.

Of course, life has a way of imposing many penalties upon us. From a human perspective, some of them seem to be deserved and others undeserved. We live in a world of shared judgments as well as shared blessings. The sins of parents are visited upon succeeding generations. Yet, the prosperity of parents is distributed, sometimes, among ungrateful as well as grateful children. The point is that misfortune does not always suggest misbehavior, nor does good fortune imply a Godly life.

We are sometimes baffled at life's turn of events. Some things do not seem fair and yet, we must never allow life's injustices to create doubt about the ultimate justice of God. Because we do not know everything, our most helpful attitude is one of trust. We are ill-equipped to be judges because we have a limited understanding of what it means to be fair.

One of the besetting sins of humankind and especially some church folk is that we think we can decide who ought to be blessed and who ought to be zapped. Our theology gets twisted and distorted when we try to evaluate people on the basis of how life treats them. It is nothing but rationalistic humanism to assume we can chart God's course on the waters of human existence.

Speculation and theories about what happens to others does not enhance our own private walk with God. Our simplistic notions about what God is doing may have nothing to do with what God is really doing. It is a humble faith that enables us to trust God whether or not we have an adequate explanation of life's unbelievable circumstances. Our most profound reaction may be simply to submit to God and learn to find hope in his divine impartiality.