God of Equity

I was having a conversation with some friends about race, and one of them said that she wanted to be treated with equity, not equality. When I hear “equality,” I think of the value we place, not the action, so I didn’t understand what she was saying at first. But when it comes to actions, equality is giving everyone the same thing whereas equity is giving everyone what they need to accomplish the same end. A popular image used to describe this shows two people gathering fruit from a tree, which has lower hanging branches on one side. The image for equality shows each person with the same sized ladder and only one able to reach the fruit; the image for equity shows the same tree, the same people, but different sized ladders, both of which reach the branches.

After this conversation, I noticed how much in my reading of the psalms God is described as treating people with equity, but we don’t always attribute that reality to Him. 

We are a people who want things to be “fair,” and as much as we say life isn’t fair, we also expect God to be (despite the fact that Jesus dying for our sins is anything but fair). But how are we defining what is fair? 

Too often when we see different treatment, we assume different value, but this is never the case for God. The equity He shows always comes from the equality of value He placed on us. The very worth He built into us that He will never diminish nor elevate beyond its reality. It is the perfect value of the God who made us. It is a value sourced in Him. And it is a value that is always held secure in His unchanging character. 

That means we experience the same pursuit, the same love, the same opportunity for salvation or judgement, the same mercy, the same desire from God. But that doesn’t mean we experience the same tangible opportunities. 

It’s easy to look at others and wonder why God did something for them and not for us. Or even why He did it for us and not them. 

Why do some people marry their high school sweethearts and others don’t meet someone until they’re older? If God has marriage for both, why not in the same way? 

When stressful circumstances crop up, why does God seem to answer every need immediately for some while the trial drags on for others? Is He not Provider to both? 

Sometimes the answers to these questions are so clear. We see the way God is maturing us, growing our trust, meeting our individual, deeper needs through the process. Sometimes, however, they don’t make sense to us at all. But there’s an assurance in knowing God places equal value in us and treats us with equity. 

Someone else’s story looking different from ours doesn’t mean God is holding out on us. In fact, it actually means He knows us intimately. 

I remember growing up my parents always said that they believed in treating their children differently because their children were different. Because their children had different needs. And in order to pursue each child’s flourishing, they needed to adapt their parenting to each child. 

To pursue passing grades in school, one child might need a game-show level study session because they struggle to learn, another might need the incentive of rewards for a good report card because they lack motivation, and another might not need the parents to intercede at all because they already have the tools to succeed in ability and drive. It's not unfairness that leads to their treatment being different but intentionality. It's parents looking at what success looks like for each child and helping them develop the tools to get there. It's good parenting.

Can you imagine the results if every child were treated equally? Not just in love and care but in action? In our pride this can sound good to us. Couldn’t we resent our parents for giving something to one child but not to us? But if we actually see the ways treating everyone the same could stifle the creativity in one, could put the burden of valedictorian level grades on another, could stunt potential or self-worth, could limit the specific ways God made us to flourish in His Kingdom . . . We need to be treated differently sometimes because we have individual needs which need to be addressed, and we have a God who meets those need. 

We might beg God for the story we see in someone else, and yet the very details and circumstances that seem to oppose that story for us could be the very means by which God is getting us to the same spiritual place. Just as often we might long for the story in someone else only to realize we need a completely different kind of story. God is tender in His gifts and intentional in His provision. And He knows us. He really knows us. You cannot treat people with equity without first understanding what their needs are and how different avenues of provision will grow them, strengthen them, and lead them to flourishing. 

We serve a God of equity, and if we understood this, how much could our perception of our circumstances change? If we really believed His heart was unchanged, our equality of value was unquestionable, and the differences by which He reveals Himself to us and moves in our lives were for our equal good and flourishing? How much of our dissatisfaction, our covetousness, our comparison could it stop if we saw this reality?

The Father already knows what you need, and He's faithful to provide.