Justice is not my Savior

"When through grace in Christ our trust is,

Justice smiles and asks no more."

-- John Newton, Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder

All too often I find myself putting my faith and hope in Justice. I expect the scales to be blind and unbiased, and yet I expect Justice to be on my side. I expect Justice to agree with me and to help me determine my morality. I want Justice to direct me, guide me, and gently correct me when I err. I want Justice to be swift when I feel wronged, but slow to anger against me when I have a good excuse.

The problem with this is that Justice does none of those things. Justice does not gently correct, it demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Justice does not determine my morality, unless my morality is to do only that for which I am rewarded and avoid doing that for which I will be punished. Justice--true Justice--shows no favoritism, holds no record of past merits to bail one out of present infractions; Justice can show no partiality, no grace, and will not acknowledge extenuating circumstances.

If I turn to Justice as my savior, Justice rightly condemns me before a perfect God. If I turn to Justice as my savior, I am bitterly disappointed because of the evil I see in this world. Justice isn't big enough to be my savior.

My Savior is Just, but He is also Grace, Patience, and Love. My Savior is firm in His correction, but He is also gentle. My Savior is Good, and He is eternal. He will bring Justice, but He has first extended His hand in friendship. My Savior loves and seeks the orphan, the widow, the downtrodden, the hurting; my Savior loves and seeks me. My Savior trusts me to seek others on His behalf. My Savior is my true and lasting hope. My Savior is forgiving. My Savior is my Guide, and He sticks with me even when I ignore His direction and cry out against the consequences of my stubborn choices. My Savior shows me how to extend grace, patience, and love to those that I would rather throw at the feet of Justice.

My Savior is not a doormat. He will not tolerate the injustice of this world for long. He will come and He will set things right in His kingdom. My Savior is strong, and He is fierce. He has all authority in Heaven and on Earth, and He will come in power to exercise it. 

And yet, my Savior waits. He waits so that He may cover yet more people with His righteousness before He comes wielding true Justice. He waits so that more may joyfully sing, 'when through grace in Christ our trust is, Justice smiles and asks no more.' 

And so I am torn between the two: I desire for Christ to come in glory, which is better by far. But He deems it more necessary for us that He waits. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you to know Him and make Him known.

Fullness

My life is messy. It is not perfect. It is not glamorous. In the virtual world of curated social media, my life is not even that photogenic. But, little by little, I'm learning how to live a full life.

My life is full. It is filled with working at a job that I love. It is filled with celebrating the little victories and little wins that happen every week. It is filled with hot beverages. It is filled with quiet moments on the couch. It is filled with laundry and cleaning and endless dishes. It is filled with joy. It is filled with music. It is filled with laughter and smiles and tears and silence. It is filled with empty journals. My life is filled with eye contact. It is filled with small talk and big talk. It is filled with editing. It is filled with grocery shopping and recipe hunting. It is filled with unhealthy comparison. It is filled with tender moments. My life is filled with words, both written and spoken. It is filled with doubt and questions. My life is filled with hugs. It is filled with staring blankly into space. It is filled with ambition that needs direction. It is filled with people. It is a messy, imperfect life. And it is full of love. 

Mine is a life in progress. I don't have all the answers, and I probably never will, but I'm learning to articulate the things I know and to appreciate the perspective that experience gives me. I'm learning to change the things I don't like, and make myself aware of the things I do like. I'm learning again to be disciplined - personally, professionally, and spiritually. I'm learning to stop comparing my life to others I see, and to make this life be the kind that I want to live. And I'm learning how to let people into the messiness and unfinished-ness.

On Receiving Love

"Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved.  Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all.  Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see."

-Soren Kierkegaard 

A coworker shared this quote with me several months ago, and I've had it posted on my desk for so long that I have ceased to notice it's there.  Thankfully it stuck in my brain enough to be recalled the past few days as I've been thinking about love and newly-wedded bliss.

Last night Ryan and I celebrated our first month of marriage, and even though it's been only one month I have realized quite a bit about myself...particularly how difficult it is for me to simply receive love.  Ryan is a very patient man and very good at reminding me that he loves me for who I am, not for the things I do.  His love for me is reassuring because I know him to be a consistent, faithful, man.  The more I know him, the more I can trust his love.  

If Kierkegaard is right about love (and he generally knew what he was talking about), love is an expression more than it is a reflection.  Ryan's love for me is an expression of who he is, not a reflection of who I am.  The more I learn about who Ryan is, the way he lives day-to-day life, the little quirks that make him who he is, the more I learn about how he loves me.  Additionally, the more I get to know Ryan, the more he is able to teach me how to love him.  (There is always a small part of me that worries that I'm not doing enough to let him know how much I love him, how interested in him I am, or how much I want to learn more about him.  I want to know him better because I want to love him better because I already love him so much!)

Because marriage is a metaphor for how Christ loves the Church, and because I tend to learn best in metaphors, I extrapolate much in regards to my relationship with Christ from my marriage.  It's always been difficult for me to receive the unconditional, priceless grace and love of God.  For a long time I lived under self-imposed pressure to prove to God how much I loved Him and how much I valued His grace and mercy.  To be honest, I didn't really understand His heart and what He desires of us, so I was unable to receive His love or truly love Him back.  But God's love for me is an expression of who he is, not a reflection of who I am.  God loves me perfectly, purely, constantly because He is Perfect, Pure, and Constant.  If I want to get to know God more (which I do!) I need to begin by letting go of my preconceived notions of who He is and learn about who He actually is through His love.

1 John  4:7-12 gives us a glimpse into this mystery:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

"No one has ever seen God: but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."  We learn more about who God is by expressing His love to others in our lives.  And, in so doing, that Love changes us and is "made complete in us."

I wish I understood this better.  The more I wrestle with this concept of love, the more I realize that I don't get it.  In order to understand God more, I need to receive His love more fully...but in order to receive His love more fully, I need to first express that love to others?  Or is it that in seeking to love others that I learn more about who God is because I understand the nature of His love better as I realize that He is much better at loving the unlovable than I am?  Is it in realizing my own shortcomings of love that I realize the vast perfection of His love?  All of the above?

Am I really surprised that I'm realizing how little I know about love after a month of being married?  Nope.  Just scratching the surface.  But I am excited to continue to learn about the connection between giving and receiving love and how it informs the "discovery of truths about individuals that others cannot see."  And I am thankful that I have a very patient husband and an infinitely more patient Savior to take this journey with me.