8am.
I'm thinking.
For the first time in a long time my thoughts are centred on an injustice.
An injustice that wounded me deeply.
It was just a couple of years ago.
I won't relay the details.
Injustice.
I think about that word.
I try to simplify it in my head.
I shave it down the this. Injustice is unfairness that brings undeserved outcomes. Its seems to me to be a human thing.
And.
When you become a victim of that?
How do you recover?
Injustice is a powerful and dark force.
So powerful.
It can hurt you. Steal from you. Change you. It can kill you.
And when it touches you?
It puts you in a place that is difficult to escape from.
Its a place a bit like a prison.
I was touched badly by it.
Recently.
But.
I'm recovering.
It's possible.
Injustice is caused by selfishness, human selfishness or by indifferent decision making by other humans.
I think of the times in the past I've been unfair to others, because that's the truth. In those times I failed to see the bigger picture, like how it would affect people and situations around the person.
And that's what happened to me and to Dawn. Our ministry, our relationship, our family, our friends were all affected in some way.
Injustice is powerful.
I think of the first step I took to recovering my life.
I went to the cross.
I knelt there and spoke to Jesus about it.
I listened to his heart.
He gave me the next step right there.
I look at the cross. The injustice of it all.
And.
The next step just hits me.
Forgiveness.
One of the hardest things to do in the known human world.
Forgiveness.
I sit there.
I sit there full of bitterness, pain, carrying a sack full of the fallout from neglect, misuse, abuse, all the stuff that has not been corrected by law or fellow humans. A sack of confusion and hurt.
This sack of pain had been causing me to defend myself from those who I knew had treated me unfairly.
Forgiveness allows me to just leave the sack of pain right there at the cross.
There is no other way.
Forgiveness seems to open up the wounds and prepare them for healing.
In my heart I long for healing.
The alternative is destruction.
Injustice can cause a person to rear up and bring out the devastating weapons of revenge and pay back.
Those thoughts were powerful .
But its not the way forward.
Those weapons destroy.
So I rise from the seat of forgiveness and decide to go forward.
I think of the key to moving forward.
Its staying close to God.
And sticking to this command from Jeremiah.
This is what the Lord says. Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigners, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. (Jeremiah 22:3-5)
And there lies an amazing exchange.
You begin to rise from the ashes of injustice and you're better equipped to defend others who have been unfairly treated. Not out of revenge. But out of closeness with God.
10am.
I feel ready to go to work.
To seek justice for the oppressed for those treated unfairly.
And.
I hear the voice of God for whatever reason asking me to blog this today.
Maybe.
Maybe someone's out there right now reading this, suffering from the fallout of injustice.
Listen.
Injustice is powerful .
But it doesn't have to beat you.
The power of injustice is but a pin prick compared to the infinite power of God who chooses this kind of fast, to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke. To set the oppressed free and break every yoke. (Jeremiah 58:6)
Be free.
Its real.
Its in our grasp.
