daily spiritual reflection - mar. 11

daily spiritual reflection

BIBLE READING FOR THE DAY: 

He is the Maker of Heaven and Earth,

    the sea, and everything in them--

    he remains faithful forever.

He upholds the cause of the oppressed 

    and gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets prisoners free,

    the Lord gives sight to the blind,

    the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,

    the Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the foreigner

    and sustains the fatherless and the widow,

    but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

- Psalm 146:6-9

THOUGHT: Imagine a God, powerful enough to have made the entire earth. Imagine a God who is on the side of the oppressed, lonely, outcast, and disabled. Imagine that he actually acts on their behalf in their lives, sustaining them, protecting them, making things right in their lives. Imagine a God who is perfectly just, and whose faithfulness never fails (he always keeps his promises, his truth never changes, he never lets down the people he is in relationship with). What if this God were real and acting in our world?

One of the huge parts of God's plan is to bring justice to the world, in other words, to 'make things right.' This passage gives us a really strong sense of what God's justice means. It may not necessarily mean 'fairness' (If he gets something, then I should get something), but it does mean that those who have been brought low by the world are lifted up.

Justice is a really important thing to God, and one of the things declared in this passage is that "the Lord loves the righteous." Righteousness is another word, in the bible, for justice-seeking, or 'making things right.' Based on this passage, we have the choice to be 'righteous', to join God in his fight for justice.

CHALLENGE:   Today, take your local newspaper, and as you open it to read it, ask God to show you the injustices that make him sad, the places where he is doing work to bring change and justice. Let yourself understand how sorry God is for the people caught in those injustices, and then lift those things up to him and ask him to do his work, to uphold the cause of the oppressed. Then, ask for a specific way you could be a part of bringing his justice to a small situation close to your heart-- maybe it is donating your time/money to something, maybe it is committing to pray, maybe simply being in relationship with someone different than you.