I've received, or been taught something, perhaps as recently as today. Right now my wife and I are facing a battle with how, where and to what extent we live. The battle takes many forms and we're far from walking the path of total righteousness. There is however this resonant harmony amidst the cacophony. Its what I think I'm coming to learn as being able to see Christ in the battle that you're engaged in; in that, I'm seeing what he's teaching me, about me, in this situation.
I have always operated with a profound sense of justice and need to execute the same. When you're young this manifests itself as "hey that's not fair" when you get older it turns into words like equitable, or just, some other more literate and adult sounding term, but mostly it's the same argument; "hey, that's not fair!"
What I realize is essentially the same principle but with a few layers. The first and most obvious now, is that when we cry out for justice, we're literally asking God to take away our mercy and send us to hell. Now that shakes me! The second level to that is how we should operate within ourselves and with others with regard to whose scale of just and unjust we should adjudicate. For if we use our own, it's destined to be a moving target, but God's then we are built upon the Rock. The desire for justice can be as large and grandios as the execution of our Savior on the cross, or as small and minute as being upset that you didn't receive what you thought was due. What a wide path of destruction! Both lead to death.
On the flip side, how can we account for the necessity of mercy in our lives and the lives of the people we come in contact with? Couldn't this be the same width? Showing of mercy, leading to life, for the killing of an innocent man, to showing mercy to those who short us in a personal relationship...maybe we were legitimately shorted, and we actually do deserve the thing in question. My answer is that we should show mercy always, in conversation, in work, in duty, in worship, in relationship, in business. What is the worst that could happen? That you're deprived of something that you're owed? Isn't God himself the arbiter of all things? Will he not repay?
I dunno, my belief is that my speech and my dealing should be full of grace and mercy. To the point at which I'm counted a fool for being so willing to be taken advantage of. If a fool, I'm a fool for Christ, for I prefer to love God's creation and give of myself to it, than to deprive them of the joy that God has shared by the giving of his mercy to me. For certainly his mercy was not weak, invisible, or free, but came at a great cost. The greatest cost; how much less am I asked of and how little do I give, begrudgingly! I've lived in the complete opposite way, but now, perhaps now, I can live the way God intended...
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