Dear Christine,
I am a teenager who is obedient to my mum at all times. This can be confirmed at church and at school.
Can you tell me why it is then that the good children are punished all the time with the bad children? My mother has tried to find out but she is stressed out at the responses given by the school.
Why am I behaving then? Why do I have a list of rules and morals?
Christine, I don’t want you to only respond, but to see if your name carries more weight with the ministry.
My last punishment was to stand in the sun at lunchtime on the first day of my menstrual cycle – which is most painful.
What or who are really the ones benefiting in this country? The good ones are asked to learn to work hard while the bad ones create problems, then go to the public and ask for help.
I have seen a few who have left my school receive help but those who are studying hard, who do not beg, steal or have multiple babies receive none.
Should I grow up and have someone else’s husband, have multiple pregnancies or take a house hostage? What is going on here?
– CONFUSED
Dear Confused,
I don’t think my name will carry any weight with the ministry, although I would say that special consideration should be given to students who behave well at school.
Permit me, though, to use some biblical perspectives to answer the many questions circling around in your head.
Why must the human race pay for Adam and Eve’s sin? Why does the Lord send rain on the just and the unjust? Why does disaster strike both the good and the bad? Why did Job in the Old Testament have to lose everything he possessed even though he was a just (innocent) man? Why did Jesus have to be crucified for the sins of the world even though He never committed a sin? I can go on and on.
The point I am trying to make is that we live in an imperfect world. While a perfect world was created, one person’s disobedience resulted in the “physical” death of mankind. What was perfect became imperfect due to sin. Since we live in an imperfect world, we cannot expect things to be perfect.
There is a saying many of us have used throughout the years. It goes like this: “Peter pays for Paul and Paul pays for all.”
Oftentimes our “so-called punishments” are the result of someone’s else’s actions – like an innocent baby who dies as a result of HIV even though he or she has never engaged in any sexual activity.
Is that fair? What about those who never live to see the light of day because they are aborted? Is that fair? No, but someone else’s actions led to their demise.
However, the fact that we live in an imperfect world is no excuse for us not to make the world a better place by our actions.
Be an example of what is good and right – even in the face of adversity. Learn to see good in everything and learn from your mistakes as well as the mistakes of others.
Also, learn to love the unlovable and practise forgiveness. In the long term, we often reap whatever we sow.
– CHRISTINE
