NAVIGATING AN UNJUST WORLD while seeking the justice of God is difficult. It can be, at times, wearisome. It isn't a once and done piece of work. It is a task of assimilation, broadening and growth. I feel I spend a great deal of time trying to reconcile the worlds in which I live.
* * * * *
I listen to stories about unrest in the middle east on NPR, but my mind is simultaneously preoccupied by the fact that I was unceremoniously de-biked last night. Lock cut. Transport gone.
"Pakistan is caught between military dictatorship and political corruption," says the man in a British accent.
What does it mean to approach these things in grace?
* * * * *
My GPS would not stop "Acquiring satellites..." on my way back from a prayer meeting.
"Why won't this stupid thing just work? It only has one job!"
What kind of entitlement have a bought into that I should never have to wait on directions? Or that I forget to think it a blessing that I can reconnect with old friends through facebook, cell-phones etc. I come down on technology that I refuse to do without.
My downstairs neighbor doesn't know where he will be living next month.
* * * * *
I don't have answers - and God doesn't want me to. The answers are his. Justice is his. Righteousness is his. Life is his. And in his infinite grace and mercy, this God more awesome than I can articulate pours it out into, over and around me, even as I so often sit in the chosen darkness of self-justification, self-righteousness, and self-pity.
I don't have the answers, but they are there to be walked into, lived into as Rilke says. God has given us the "ministry of reconcilliation," but we must not mistake the gift and mission as ours possessively. The gift and glory begin and end in Him.
