The most graphic reason life
doesn’t work is the seeming inequity between our instinctive sense of justice
and the reality relating to how things work out.
Life isn’t fair.
This is a conundrum that has
troubled all generations over the history of humankind. Nowhere in human
parlance, nor in ancient antiquity ‘til the present day, is there cited any absolute
passage for peace in the world—especially for those trying to live right.
Persecution is the lot for those
who do right.
Accusing God and the Madness of
Injustice
We might be tempted to disparage
God for having created such a life; an existence that is more to be endured
than enjoyed. Many people give up on God or resent God for the facts of life,
that there is no reward here, in this life, for many of our righteous deeds.
And this fact troubles our human outlook regarding such things as fairness and
justice.
If God is God, surely there is fairness and justice and righteousness, as
promised in the Bible (see Proverbs 1–2). How can God just stand back and watch
the innocent ones be trapped and maimed and humiliated and condemned? Why are
we denigrated, accused, slandered and defamed? Are we not just trying to live
life the best we can? Do we have it out for other people? Are we enemies of
God?
So we can understand why people
see justice in life as sheer madness. The law is an ass. Or so they say. But if
we believe God is God then we have to entertain, even upon a lighter, more
transient moment, that there are perhaps many things we don’t understand. Maybe
we are just being naïve. But can the whole world be naïve?
Perhaps the point is, it isn’t the
whole world that attempts to be righteous. We are told to obey God, and our
instincts tell us, besides our salvation, that this is the right thing to do.
We feel horrible when we know we have done wrong. We cannot endure feeling so
wrong. It begins to destroy us.
So, in being committed towards
faithfulness to God, in trying to live as righteous as we can, which is the
opposite of self-righteousness, we still wonder why justice evades us. Why do
we attract the bully? Why is it that the foul mocker, and the calamitous fool,
are granted safe passage, and seem blessed indeed, even to reign over us?
Why is it so that wanton sinners
find peace in a life that God supposedly controls? The more they sin the more
they seem to get away with. And the more that happens, the more they laugh at
God, and look at us sideways in their laughter. They despise justice and they
live only for themselves, thinking that life will endure, or perhaps they just
enjoy it as selfishly as possible for as long as it lasts.
They don’t believe in judgment, for
if they did they would not do the things they do. There would be a good measure
of certitude, of introspection, even repentance. But they do not believe. The
world is their oyster; they think they own it; and they try to own us, too.
So, how are we to respond?
Responding Well
Well, to begin with, we may not be
as innocent as what we think we are at first glance. Whilst we try to live
righteous lives, we, like they, are sinners. We may hate the fact that we are
sinners, somehow occasionally justifying, before God, our sins as piousness,
and only reconciling this understanding with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
We, like they, hate being wrong.
Our pride reveals us as sinners. And unfortunately pride begets pride. We
respond to their overtures of power with so-called righteous indignation, but we
frequently overstep our mark. We, the hurt, react in the hurt to hurt those who
hurt us. And when we play the game, with odds in their favour, we come out
second best just about every time. Our hurts are polarised and they get buried
deeper and deeper into our self-structure. We become more prone to sin the more
we contest the aberrant sinner. It’s an insidiously vicious cycle.
The most obvious problem we have
is we cannot change the world or the people we have been ‘selected’ to live
with. We don’t have to find a way of accepting all this, but we are fools if we
don’t try. And that is the juncture everybody is faced with.
What do we do with the injustices
that have happened and will continue to happen to us? What do we do with such
maddening prospects given the maddening things that have happened? Do we suffer
in silence with no hope but for despairing? Do we wait as lambs before the
slaughterer? Do we meekly say nothing? Do we not resist?
Redemption Time
The lands of confusion always
promote questioning. And whilst questioning might prove frustrating in the
interim, it has to help from a longer term perspective.
Certainly we may come to a
precipice, where, with sight for all that is around us, we may be given to
panic attacks. When we see everything as hopeless our hope fades and, with it,
our cognisance of God, too. We grow further and further, in our shrinking, from
God. And we only recognise this when we are so far away, when we have so long
to travel back, when we have almost given up hope of reconnecting with God.
But, strangely, this is often a
position of heart where God is closest
to connecting with us. When we have done things our way for far too long, and
suddenly it appears we have lost our way, we can quickly recognise the breath
of God warming our ear; God may be there, right beside us, ready to encourage and
urge us to live the best we can, despite our circumstances.
It is a strange reality to note
the convergence of our honest recognition of our sinfulness with the favour of
God to pick us up and take us further along the path.
Such a reality, as we look back, seemed
so elusive—to achieve peace within—yes, despite our circumstances—and it was
raw honesty before God, and the whole world, that got us there. We live freely
for once and we are liberated, saved afresh. And our salvation came not because
other people were put in their place; their place remains. Our sense of
deliverance came not because another person was judged; they may continue as
they have been. Our knowledge of God has been enhanced because we started to
see ourselves in relationship with God; that, in isolation, proved more
edifying, more transforming, and more illuminating, than we could have expected
in our wildest dreams. Such is the grace of God to turn our world upside down,
yet have us feeling on top of our world.
But we started with persecution;
and persecution of the righteous!
The Righteousness of God
So we are not righteous, but deemed
righteous by faith in God, through our Saviour, the Father’s only Son—the Lord
Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, as our life force and
as our Spiritual guide. The righteousness of the Spirit is what speaks then
into our lives, judging us, upon every move we make. We are accountable to God.
And repentance becomes a key way we relate with our God.
Regarding life and death, then, or
perhaps better put, death and life, we have symbols in the cross and the
resurrection. Jesus was persecuted and died on the cross to put to death the
eternal power of sin, for those who would believe, and was raised again so that
we may have life, true life, in his name. Until we know this true life the old
life seems like life. But from the context of the true life the old life pales
into insignificance.
The cross is our righteousness and
the resurrection is our hope. The cross was death, and death to our sin, but
the resurrection was life for us, life beyond hopelessness, even in the midst
of impossible persecutions.
Convicted – Guilty As Charged! – (But Is
That So?)
But I, for one, am not worthy of
the righteousness of God to save me from my sins. I can’t think of anything
truer. Having lived as a born-again Christian for years I still sin, both
unintentionally and intentionally. What is to become of me? Not only would
there be fear for judgment on the Day of the Lord, but there is fear for
judgment in the present day, before the very lords that persecute me. Aha, I
find myself guilty having judged myself! Am I persecuted after all? Or is it
that God has seen it fit to try my conscience?
Is it perhaps that the Spirit of
the Lord is working within my conscience to judge me, to deem me guilty of
self-righteousness, in the midst of others legitimately calling me to account?
These are the appropriate testings of the Lord—the God that searches out our
hearts and discerns the motives that are designed by a sinful nature.
I am a wretched man. There is no
truer truth. But, praise God, due the obedience of the Son, my case is not
forlorn and never will be. But should I sin? No I shouldn’t. Will I sin? Yes I
will. I know this and accept it. Holding the tension of both realities; it
tests my spiritual resolve.
And in the mix of mistakes and
slips and lapses and errors of omission and intention, and even of lies, there
is forgiveness—how or why; that’s the mystery. Can we adequately understand the
grace of God to make things right which are interminably wrong? No, nobody can
understand nor explain. Grace is a concept too high for human thinking; it is
too high for a human conception of morality.
Then there are practical concerns
of living as a Christian person in a heathen world. There is, then, thought of
the battleground environment the Christian finds themselves in. Surely they
were saved from this? Surely things got better at salvation, not worse?
Fear fills the heart in the
instant of recognition that we are but bait for Satan, despite our situational
righteousness and unrighteousness. We enter the battleground as surely as we
live and breathe, even besides leaving the front door. Satan uses the sinful
nature with nimble aplomb. And if we are not tricked into sinning, either overtly
or covertly, Satan will coerce our mood, and soon we will complain about our
lot in life, and about how tardy our Defender is in delivering us from the
injustices of life. Oh, that sinful nature, again!
Either way Satan will attack us.
Either way we will be drawn into spiritual warfare. Either way, we will be ‘found
guilty’ in the eyes of the evil one. And only cognisance of our worth in God,
and our righteousness by faith, can save us in practical ways.
We are guilty of ourselves, yet
entirely innocent because of grace—praise God. We need frequent reminding.
Battleground Modus Operandi
This world of spiritual warfare,
the battleground of Belial, is ours by default of our existence. There is no
real point in disparaging God, or in getting glum about it, because we can do
nothing about its presence here with us. There are evil forces about, and they
collude with both our sinful and situationally righteous selves.
We obviously need a battleground
modus operandi; one that helps us in this spiritual warfare to maintain as good
a focus on God as we can. The only way to challenge persecution, and be even
remotely successful, is to be prepared to fight; to fight the good fight. And
there is no point in not fighting. Even if we hate fighting we must learn to fight
this fight. We must remember that God is with us, for us, never against
us—especially as we fight in his name.
How do we fight, then? We learn to
keep moving, not physically, but mentally, as we ready ourselves for an
imminent attack. We are not fearful, just ready, expecting a tough unrelenting
battle. We become battle-hardened—in our minds and hearts—and battle-ready. We
remember that we face off with the devil, even in our weakness, with the
strength of the Lord Almighty.
It is a great advantage to us when
we can approach each day, as if to say by our demeanour, “For the tests and
temptations and persecutions already coming, make me ready, Lord, that I would
have as positive an attitude as possible, Amen.”
It may be easy to pray this
prayer, but it is much harder to actually live it.
As we keep moving and steadying
our spiritual gait as the moments intercede, we remind ourselves of the
resilience we need to draw upon beyond our losses. We try to remain in check of
our emotions, being reminded that the business of life is just that; a
business, plain and simple, without much need for losing control. The
unemotional approach to life is its own blessing. We get to experience peace
for free.
When we are pushed by people we
don’t react. Instead we learn to ask questions as our contribution to the
dialogue. We get just as much out of life and from our interactions just asking
questions than we do by making bold and outlandish statements. The best of
communicators—and Jesus exemplified this—communicate much of what they think
via questions. The good questioner can demonstrate lucid listening abilities as
well as have the discernment to challenge many lies and deceptions by using a
persuasive line of questioning in the seeking of truth.
We can also learn to laugh within
ourselves; to not take life so seriously. Why do we lose so much sleep, and get
anxious, over the little issues of life? And we should know, anxiety is the revelatory
vehicle bringing to the surface our pain deep beneath. Much of this pain exists
dormantly as in a muddy creek bed deeper into the psyche than much of the time
we can access. Yet our dreams and our interactions are important clues for what
lies deep beneath. We may be able to shift, or at least shore-up, what is deep
beneath, to some extent, by getting into habits of sight where clear and broad perspective
is visible.
We might also implement a C.A.L.M.
approach to all facets of life.
If we can be Careful regarding our approach in dubious situations, and Agile enough to battle well in
the presence of stealth warfare, always prepared to Love (which is also the preparedness to invoke the
disciplinary truth-first ‘tough love’), we can prove Mature by demonstration of how we handle the situation.
***
Because the righteous live by
faith (Romans 1:17) they are prepared to accept that what goes with the
territory of this world, particularly as a Christian, is spiritual warfare. By
faith the righteous fight the good fight of faith in obedience to God.
One purpose of persecution is to
get us to draw near to our only help: God. Because this world is evil,
persecution in this life is a given. Faith is the only way we can overcome.
Faith is the ultimate, general-purpose problem solver.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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