Justice

A Psalm of David.
I WILL sing of mercy and loving-kindness and justice; to You, O Lord, will I sing..
Psalm 101:1 (Amplified Bible)

What gets your dander up? What lights your fire? What flips your switch? Are you quick to anger or slow? Do you allow God to avenge or do you spend wake less hours plotting your own justice? I don’t know about you, but I can answer that for myself and I don’t like the answer…

I feel I’m the kind of person that practices what she preaches, but sometimes my short fuse gets the best of me and it’s like I don’t even have control of my emotions. That’s scary to me. I don’t want to be like that. When I feel I’m unjustly accused and have been backed into a corner, I come out with both barrels sometimes. I know we all have felt threatened in our lives and life’s not always fair, but does that give us the right to want our own justice- I believe the answer to that is NO, it does not.

This week’s devotion is a sense of “self therapy” for me. I’m hoping that by sharing my struggle, it might help you to deal with your own somewhere down the road. I was encouraged late last year by my best friends, to share my devotions weekly and I had no idea at the time how completely therapeutic it would be for me in the process, and this week is no exception to that rule.

I need to remember that when life isn’t fair- God is. When days are filled with anger and tears, I need to lay that at His feet. When all I want to do is retaliate- He is my Avenger. And that no matter how rough it gets, it’s been rougher for Him simply because He loves me and He chose to be my Savior. Because I’m sure that more times than not- it is ME that hurts Him. And it’s not about me- it’s about Him. It’s about my sins that took the form of the nails that secured Him to that cross. When I take the focus of myself and stop playing the martyr, I realize the pain that I alone have caused, not just to Him but to others and it makes my accusations a little smaller in the process.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to be angry or hurt. We all make mistakes, sometimes we hurt others by mistake and sometimes it’s on purpose. I’m ashamed to say that I believe there’s even times I’ve hurt Him intentionally- at the time, it didn’t feel like that, but when I look back- I knew what I was doing, I just put the hurting Him part out of my mind for the moment.

He grieves us. He grieves our sins and I’ve hurt Him enough for a lifetime. And if I live to be 100- I’m not even half way there yet. So, when will I learn to give my anger to Him? When will I admit I can’t or don’t want revenge? I believe that comes with maturity in Christ- something I’m obviously still working on.. When I think about being judged as much or worse than I judge others, it really makes me think. I’m so very thankful for His Grace and Mercy. I’m so very thankful for His constant Love and Support. I am so very thankful that He is my future and that anything this world can dish out- together, He and I can handle. I pray I will always remember that, and that you will too.


Julie