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Hungry for
Justice Justice is the topic that most of us, most times, look at one-sided. We are quick to point out the injustice when others wrong us; this is especially true in the work place. We wonder how just it is when we see our bosses prosper while we work so hard without being properly compensated or even thanked. As a community of faith we wonder how just can God be when the wicked prosper; yet good moral hard working people of faith struggle. (Psalm 73) To find our answers we need to understand what justice is to God. Most human beings want to be rewarded for good deeds, but definitely do not want to suffer for bad choices. Yet, God's justice demands that if right is to be compensated, wrong must be punished. We must acknowledge that God is not a just God if He rewards good choices and ignores bad choices. No group of Godly men had more concern for justice than the founding fathers of our great nation when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. In August 17, 1858 Abraham Lincoln wrote of them: "Wise statesmen they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence . . . so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land." It is amazing how more than two hundred years ago these great men of faith knew that if left unchecked humanity would distort justice. Their foresight made provision to enable posterity for a just society where all man would be endowed with the same opportunities to live out the American dream, making us a very distinct and blessed nation. As we look over the twenty-first century landscape we are hard pressed to find one single man of the caliber of those who penned the Declaration of Independence. Could there be a direct correlation between a society whose scholarly curriculum was ninety percent based on moral character and the Bible and only ten percent on math, and names such men as Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington? Our world today is very different than the world of 1776. Ours is a self centered world that is not concerned with what is just for all; that has lost sight of the fact that it is our religious foundation, created by a just God, which assures us that justice can prevail; a foundation that sees all human as a precious creation and not a commodity. Lord, please help me to seek justice as God has been just with me. Meditation: Am I just with those entrusted to me by God and others?
Jorge L. Valdes, Ph.D.
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