Justice

Sometimes i get up on my high horse of thinking that the Old Testament is full of dos and don'ts and that it was contextual and does not apply to my life today. I can sometimes even lean as far as to think that my faith could do without the Old Testament and just focus on the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. Yet, what i read today reminds me that many of Jesus' teachings do stem from Old Testament scripture. And it's a beautiful thing to think about the fact that since the beginning of time God cared for the lost, the left out, and the poor. God has always been and will always be a God of Justice. Jesus came to teach us more about justice through his way of life, and his parables. I want to be more about justice like we read in Exodus.

What struck me, however, is how unnatural justice can be. We are called to return our enemy's donkey to him (Exodus 23:4) and to lift the heavy burden off of those who hate us (v. 5). I'd be happy to return a lost pet to a friend, or help someone i love who is hurting or in trouble. But when i think about the people in my life who have wronged me...the ones who maybe have left me on the side of the road, i have a hard time thinking about being as loving as this scripture encourages. I think that my natural instinct is that justice would be for them to suffer, or feel the pain that i have felt.

I think this is what is so remarkable, and yet so revolutionary about God and the call for each of us in faith. We are asked not to respond with what might "feel" like justice to us, rather to respond with what looks more like justice in the form of love. That's radical. That's Christ-like. That's really hard somedays!

My prayer for this world, especially those of us who are claiming to follow God, is that we would learn to be more loving in our understanding of justice. That we would see justice as God sees justice and love even those who might seem, at first, impossible to love!

May you love like that today!

-Kelly