August 23, 2007

  • All that God dreamed up

    Sometimes we hear things or see things or read things that we can't forget.  Sometimes we wish desperately that we could forget them.  Sometimes we're willing to give every ounce of all we are to keep on remembering.  Sometimes it's a mixture of both.

    I just can't get it out of my mind -- this passage in Prov 31 about poverty and justice.  Do you remember it?  It's the verse that says to let the poor drink beer so that they could forget their misery and anguish.  It won't stop running through my mind that there are people so poor that Wisdom would say to let them drink so that they won't have to remember their misery!  The amount of despair that is revealed in these verses makes my heart ache so much I wish I could forget it.  And yet this amount of very real, everyday heartache that people experience is something I don't want to forget. 

    Because.  I want to do something about it.
    It is clear this desire I have is something God desires.
    The verses that follow those previous verses say,

    "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.  Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy." 

    This is our job.  We must speak up for others - be a voice for the voiceless.  This call has become increasingly poignant to me; it increasingly pierces my heart and demands action.  God really cares about justice, doesn't He?  I was never really aware of this before, but now I see it so clearly.  Because I am made in His image, the passion for justice burns within me.  I want to defend the rights of others that they may have all that God dreamed up for them. 

    May all men and women, rich and poor, and people of every tribe and tongue in all the earth know their value, dignity and worth in God's eyes.  May they experience the degree to which He values and esteems them through all the human beings they encounter in their lives.  And may I come to know the part which I can play to answer this call for justice.

Comments (2)

  • No offense, but .. people say this kind of thing, but they think it is some big missions trip that they have to do to be a "voice for the voiceless". but when push comes to shove in their every day lives, people don't really defend the needs of the poor and needy. people don't truly value the lives of the poor and needy in their own neighborhood, or in their own city. their every day thoughts are AGAINST the poor and needy. they only love the ones that they can know from a distance. that's what makes me angry. Not that you are one among that bunch.

  • I agree w/you, justwatching, that we need to think about the poor and needy right here in our neighborhood. in fact, when i wrote this entry, i was thinking of the people here -- not somewhere else... i guess b/c while we were here in the states, i feel like that's what God calls us (us as in me and sam) to be doing. still trying to figure out how exactly to be doing it in the 'details-S' kind of way.

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