What to Do When Life’s Not Fair

“Life is not fair. . . as Jerry Jones has so ably communicated in Cheated: What to Do When Life’s Not Fair—the story of Leah. So what can we do when life’s not fair? We can decide to be joyful in the things dealt to us.”

When life isn’t fair, we want explanations. Jerry Jones reaches back into Genesis and draws helpful insights from the story of a woman who was cheated by life. Leah didn’t live a happily-ever-after life. And for a long time, she struggled with deep family disappointment. This book reveals how she got beyond being cheated and suggests that, like Leah, we can move beyond life’s often-unfair twists.

Jerry Jones reaches back into Genesis and draws helpful insights from the story of a woman who was cheated by life. Click To Tweet

A Review by Reader Llynn Enmen

A number of years ago a preacher chose this title for his message, “An Unfair God in a Fair-Minded World.” He stated that we may feel deserving of certain blessings or benefits just because everyone else has enjoyed them or we worked or endured enough to reap them. The preacher reminded God how others didn’t appreciate or properly use the benefits given them, but if God gave them to him, he would use them for God’s glory. He felt cheated of the blessings he saw in others until he realized it wasn’t about him, but about a God who loved him, and through his situation, proved that love to him.

Even When Life Isn’t Fair, We Are Not Alone

My granddaughter, at age three, was diagnosed with diabetes. At about age four, we went to a restaurant together. As soon as we sat down, she curled up in her chair and began to cry. “What is wrong, sweetheart?” I asked. “Gram-mere,” she choked out, “Why am I the only one in here with diabetes?” She felt so alone in the burden she carried. After explaining that there were others that had not shared their diabetes diagnosis with her, just as she had not told them, her focus and her countenance changed from feeling sorry for herself to acceptance that others walk the same path. Did the Lord heal her? No. She wasn’t cheated of a healthy body, but the Lord’s love in her life became evident in so many other ways.

My father left before I was born, and my mother left shortly after my birth. I was raised by grandparents who wouldn’t tell me the truth and others gave me conflicting stories surrounding my birth. Was I cheated from happiness by the absence of my biological parents? At times I thought so. Praying about my heritage one day and asking for answers the Lord said, “I have hidden it from you.” Was this to be mean? Never. He spared me. He loved me and proved it by walking with me in the situations I faced. Today more than ever I see His love manifested in my life.

Life is not fair and neither can we force it to be fair as Jerry Jones has so ably communicated in Cheated: What to Do When Life’s Not Fair—the story of Leah. So what can we do when life’s not fair? We can decide to be joyful in the things dealt to us.