Unless you have been truly blessed, or born into privilege, you have no doubt learned that life is not fair.  At least in the way you might look at it. When children try to understand why life is unfair, they may think it is because they are bad or someone else is bad.  

As adults, a part of us continues to believe that we will always have good fortune if we are good. We believe if we share with others, if we are good to others, life will be fair to us. However, when that does not happen, we ask ourselves, why is life so unfair?

What we may be most angry about is that the universe and God are different from what we expect it to be. Throughout history, people of faith have given several causes for why bad things happen to good people.

Sinning by omission. Failing to do what is right or neglect a duty or responsibility. Such as failing to help someone in need or not praying. They are not about committing a wrongful act, but rather about inaction. Especially If you have the means to do more.  No matter how small.

Sinning by commission. You actively commit a wrongly act, such as lying, stealing, or adultery. Many might come to the conclusion that the former sin is not as grave as this one. Afterall, you are not responsible for the other persons circumstances. “They should get a job. I work for what I get, so why can’t they.”  

People, perhaps less religiously oriented, would say the reason that bad things happen to good people can be explained by science. People get sick because of viruses and germs. People attack other people because they “lack impulse control,” or have suffered an abusive childhood.

“Life is often unfair.” The answer to “why” remains an open question or perhaps even a mystery; that life is often unfair and that we do not know why. According to Chaplain Juliana Lesher, M.DIV., BCC, And Chaplain Dick Millapaugh.

Or, “so that you may show yourselves to be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on those who are evil and on those who are good, and makes the rain fall on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).

You might ask, in the midst of the mystery, how do we cope with the unfairness of life? It may lead us to join the author of this writer. “So, life came to mean nothing to me, because everything in it had brought me nothing but trouble. It had all been useless; I had been chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2.17).