Injustices of the World – Action or Despair

“A poor man’s field may produce abundant food,

but injustice sweeps it away.”

~Proverbs 13:23 (NIV).

THERE IS SO MUCH INJUSTICE OUT THERE. Almost none of its full volume reaches our psyches. Almost none of us are privy to the vastness of injustice—if we were we’d be fervently pressed to either act or flummox in despair—the “privileged” few have reached both these ends, often simultaneously.

It’s with a somewhat embarrassed and reconciled acceptance that I consider how little of life I have actually seen, never having travelled past the borders of the grand land of Australia, for instance—the most privileged nation on the earth, it seems.

Yet, I know that God has work for all of us in his kingdom everywhere—in this, he comforts me. Notwithstanding, it’s the injustices that reign which we all must abide; capturing our attention, praying, interceding, acting.

As we care for this planet and those who remain here, we cannot help being touched by the hand and heart of God—consciences intact, that is.

We ask the Lord our God:

“Why do you make me look at injustice?

Why do you tolerate wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me;

there is strife and conflict abounds.”

~Habakkuk 1:3 (NIV).

We look and can’t help it. Vision and hearing—the gifts—are blest of most. We ask until we understand, ‘Why is it that God seems to “tolerate” all this wrongdoing, death, misery and uncertainty?’

But it’s a selfish attitude at best, for we see through our own eyes only—our very human eyes; often a little devoid of God’s Spiritual Presence interceding. We make the LORD out to be a God holy, but despicable; a weird, irreconcilable image, and certainly false.

God’s purpose in injustice is so totally beyond us; the schema of sin and ‘the fall’ notwithstanding.

Still, we are his vessels, his vassals, his instruments, his actors—for such a time as this. This is an issue of critical mass, folks. The fields are ripe for the harvest (John 4:35). We stand at the gates ready to charge, but for a time there’s the need of training. Fighting ‘the good fight’ is a lot more instinctively intuitive than we might at times think—reading God’s Spirit and his will; a vast wisdom that only true worship and spiritual devotion will empower or resolve.

It’s no good fighting the devil’s fight for him. We stand here with all the weapons of the armoury of God at our full disposal—but how will we use them? Only God’s Spirit can direct. What seems to us to make sense—in our humanity—is often an immense folly. The Bible speaks about this in 1 Corinthians 1:18 – 2:16, and in other places.

And our ‘key performance indicator’ is our relationship success as we act. To fight injustice is fundamental; the “how” is the key.

‘The how’ will direct the output positively or negatively—acting in faith or despairing in hopelessness. God, in this, is always trying to say something to us.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.