Thoughts On Darkness and Justice

There was darkness over the land, but no one seemed to notice. There was the perishing of the innocent everywhere, but few paid any mind.  The face of cruelty revealed itself to many; its piercing, chilling eyes cutting deep wounds into the flesh and feeling of its victims.  And the tears of those unjustly rewarded for their service in the name of love filled broken hearts and consumed thirsty deserts.  Even the oceans were jealous of the size of these vast bodies of saline and pain and water.

Where was the just God of which we had heard?  The exactor of vengeance?  The one who demanded we surrender our rights to recompense the evil ones with the evil they had done to us?  He seems no more fair than the wrongs inflicted upon us by the haughty scoffers of truth.

Then again, does He have to justify Himself?  Does life have to make sense to us?  Has the horror that His heart suffered not been sufficient to allow us to suffer with Him?  Is pain always as evil as it feels?

When we come down to the basics of it all we must realize the truth of the matter:  life does not have to make sense to us, only God.  All of the misguided desires of youth and quests of age that fail due to lack of gratitude and faith.  All of our words and works and worth must make sense only to Him.  For if we fail to trust that He is at least just a little bit more intelligent than our grandest imaginations than we trust only in our best and insufficient efforts.  Thus, we become but remnants of shattered dreams- His and ours.  We succumb to the misery, the questioning, the apathy that is lost control and chaos.  We yield our hearts and lives to the brokenness, feeling little hope for freedom from it.  We descend and wallow and wonder why we can then at best wander the streets of thought without wisdom as our guide.  Consequently, we are left with no secure friendship or alliance with a king.  We become but loyal subjects of our own destruction, desolation, and of the wounds done to us.  We are not what we want to be, not what we should be, not what we were made to be.

But somehow, despite our at least sensing, if not knowing better, we lay down our arms, pick up and promote continually our qualms and say, “It is good enough.  Justice is not as important as my fulfilling the latest whim or embracing the trending attitude.”  As if it could ever be.  When we do nothing but devalue mercy and then cry that there is none to help or that no one has enough compassion to rescue us.  Maybe we don’t want to truly be rescued, or our pride forbids the humility to ask.  Or maybe it is just His means of rescuing us we don’t want.  Either way, compromise for the wrong reasons or with the wrong intentions does not bring peace–or justice.  Only surrender to something greater, Someone greater, with something better than our own thoughts, our own way of doing things will bring peace.  God’s justice is not forgotten or delinquent; the timing will be perfect and astounding to the unprepared and disdainful.  The Cross of Christ offers a chance for repentance for all guilty and condemned by conscience or crimes.  The goodness of God can lead to repentance, which brings an avenue to the life that is the Light of men.  The Light shines in darkness but will those in darkness notice it and comprehend it?  Or will they continue to do it injustice?

(For more information please see the 59^th chapter of Isaiah in the Holy Bible.)