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| photo by Abraham Bates |
I'm guessing you are a person similar to me. You have ups and down, joys and pains, good days and bad ones, similar to everyone else on the planet. You strive for meaning and purpose; you bend your schedule, your time, your endeavors to live the kind of life you want to live? It may not be easy; but this is what we strive for. And in the middle of all this the Psalmist David says: "For you have maintained my just cause (Psalm 9:4)."
The question is: how is God maintaining your just cause? And what does that look like in everyday life?
justice
There's this passage in Genesis where God and Abraham are talking. God is asking Abraham to follow him; Abraham responds in obedience (even though he has no idea how it's all going to work out.). God's response to Abraham was that he is considered righteous now that he believes in God (Genesis 15:6). The word righteousness means: right place, as in right place before God. The justice of God seeks to make your place, and everyone else's on the planet, right before God. So when you think of justice think of a God who is seeking to make all thing right.
peace
This is similar to shalom, which is the Biblical word for peace. God is a God of peace bringing shalom through his work and into all things. Shalom is not the cessation of things, when all things become quiet and serene. Shalom is better understood in the idea of human flourishing, when everything has it's place and you are at the peak of your potential. Peace for you is when you know your place, find your endeavor, have the kind of relationships that are real and close. So when you think of peace think of a God who is making all things flourish.
relationship
If justice and peace are what God is seeking to maintain, how do we have it? Pure and simple: cultivate a relationship with the God of justice and shalom. He is moving throughout the earth to bring make all things right, to make all thing flourish. This includes us and the world around us. The Psalmist David says in another poem: our days are like grass, yet with God we flourish like a flower in a field (Psalm 103:15).
We are to strive to make our relationship with God the focal point of every waking day. As we do this we will find a right place before our God who makes all of our life flourish.
AB.
*written by Abraham Bates - Photography by Abraham Bates - Copyright AbrahamBates.com
*written by Abraham Bates - Photography by Abraham Bates - Copyright AbrahamBates.com
