Job

Job's been my companion this year.

 I got that there was something in the discussion with God, the debate about justice and what Job had gotten wrong, the accusations of his friends, his being tested, his uprightness at the beginning  his call for justice, to argue it out and the final words of God that redirect Job's arguments to His majesty power and wisdom but I've always missed what the point was.

It's not about justice it's about God being right, about God's wisdom, His redemptive grace trumping justice... there is a better way, harder but closer to the heart of God ~ redemption. The Father's desire that all be saved, a desire that we let go of justice in order to allow God to work through us to bring redemption to those around us..deep healing, complete redemption, and at the same time to bring redemption and healing into our own lives.

Justice belongs with the accusations, it is the cry of the human heart that takes us further and further away from God. The difference between listening to the accuser or  listening to the comforter.

Mercy is the way of redemption, the way of the cross, the way of God, the way of living in relationship with Christ.

Mercy continued

This thinking through the concepts of  justice and mercy wasn't new, just the direction it started to take. It started as an essay question a long long time ago An essay comparing mercy and justice, and from memory I put up a good argument for their inter-relatedness... that justice in a way is mercy ...and mercy is brought about by justice.  Maybe its time to admit I got it wrong. Maybe very wrong....

The demand for justice is the recognition of the good and evil, the human need to present a case..and the sense of evil. 

You see, I get that forgiveness is redemptive, not just for me but for the other person, we sin, we hurt each other because we hurt, are scared, are insecure, and God would show His love and heal us - that's what the cross is about. That's mercy...mercy goes way beyond Justice, and well mercy, forgiveness, and grace are God's gifts to us through the cross.

For me, genuine forgiveness is to ask God to go further and grant the healing that those who hurt us need in order to be who God created them to be - literally to bless them in the face of what they have done, ~ redemptive mercy.

In face of the call to bless those who cursed me I needed to set aside my "right" to justice.

Knowing what is right and wrong, is important, doing right not wrong to others is to be upright, but choosing mercy over justice is what God in his wisdom offered us in the Garden, and redeemed for us on the Cross. Its the split between love and law, it is the definition of grace.

 We will always need to set aside my right to justice in favor of God's desire to show each and all of us His mercy, redemption, grace, love ~ in short to give us life. To do so is to follow Jesus, to be renewed in His image, to know His ways to feed once more from the tree of life, and not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To be redeemed.

Mercy

I got challenged by a sermon, one that got under my skin, not because I disagreed with the exposition or the theology. That side of it was well done, very well done. It was the context, the accusation that it carried, the demand to forgive, repent, to cease seeking justice and bless those who curse you. In particular the person delivering the sermon.

Every inch of me reared up at the injustice of it all. It was wrong...I had a case, I was falsely accused and it wasn't the first time... its been a long year, a year of growth, working things out, growing in God, recognizing my sin, changing my worldview...and false or at least severely twisted accusations and punishments arising from them. You get the picture...

Only at the heart of it all is the Christian call to forgive, to seek redemption "to seek justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God"

In the face of this all I could feel was the injustice. Receiving justice would make it different.

But this year has taught me heading down the justice track with God never ends well but that was where I was. This year has had a precision screams evil mastermind and God hadn't intervened yet. I guessed it wasn't that I was about to be delivered from it by divine intervention. There was a point, a good, redemptive point.

God doesn't call us to demand justice but to seek for it, to look for it, but along the way to love, to delight in, to be willing to prefer mercy.