Upon hearing people lament: “Good people don’t seem to get rewarded, while bad people seem to be living the good life. It’s unfair!” one might wonder what God’s thoughts are. Though God remains silent, the question continues to echo in the hearts of innocent children.
In 1963, a girl named Mary Barney wrote a letter to the Chicago Tribune, expressing her confusion as to why her small act of kindness — helping her mother bring cookies from the kitchen and setting them on the table — earned her only a simple compliment, while her mischievous younger brother, David, received a cookie instead of being scolded for misbehaving. She questioned the fairness of God’s actions, as she frequently saw good children like herself seemingly forgotten by God at home and in school.
The unanswered question
Cyril Kuster, the editor of the Children’s section of the Chicago Tribune, had received thousands of such letters over a decade, all asking why God doesn’t reward good people and punish the bad. He felt a heavy burden each time he opened such letters, unsure of how to respond to these inquiries.
His answer came unexpectedly at a friend’s wedding ceremony — an event that would subsequently catapult him to worldwide fame.
An epiphany at a wedding
Cyril Kuster vividly remembers the wedding: At the ceremony, as the bride and groom were exchanging rings, they mistakenly put the rings on each other’s right hands due to their excitement or perhaps their overwhelming happiness.
Seeing this, the pastor humorously suggested: “Your right hand is already good enough; I think you should probably adorn your left hand instead.” Kuster realized that this humorous remark held profound wisdom: The right hand, being good enough as it is, does not need additional adornment. Could it be that morally upright people are often overlooked because they are already good enough?
The highest reward of all
Kuster concluded that by making it the right hand, God had already given it the highest reward. Similarly, when God makes a good person, it is the highest reward for that person.
Upon this realization, Kuster was ecstatic. He immediately wrote a letter to Mary Barney with the title “God Making You a Good Child Is the Highest Reward for You.” After the letter was published in the Chicago Tribune, it was reprinted by over a thousand newspapers in the United States and Europe within a short time, and it has been republished every Children’s Day since.
Ancient Chinese wisdom
A Chinese reader came across this letter and left a comment online, sharing an ancient Chinese saying: “Evil begets evil, good begets good. If the retribution doesn’t come, it’s just not time for it yet.” This reader further understood that “allowing wicked people to be wicked is God’s punishment for them.”
The good fortune in being good
According to traditional Chinese thought, every individual has a predetermined amount of fortune and disaster in their life. The acts of kindness performed by good people accumulate merit, which can offset part of their misfortune.
Being a “good person” is a reward in itself, while doing evil diminishes one’s blessings. Think about it: Have you ever missed a train, only to later learn you avoided an accident? Lost money, only to find you saved yourself from a bad investment? Experienced a heartbreak, only to meet your true love soon after? Heard of a child avoiding food poisoning at school because they were home sick?
As the old saying goes: “Misfortune might be a blessing in disguise.”
Translated by Audrey Wang
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