I’ve been feeding people lately.  Lots of people.  They were good people I was feeding, no doubt.  Artists and volunteers working together to provide beautiful things for a privileged community.  I fed approximately 150 people for breakfast, lunch, and heavy snacks for three days straight.  Oh, I had tons of help.  In fact, I didn’t have to cook or bake a thing myself – it was all done by a mass of amazing volunteers who showed up with the items I requested at regular intervals, and then assisted me in distributing those items.  I am beyond grateful for their support.  I'm also tired, sore, sick at the idea of setting foot anywhere near a grocery store, and, quite honestly, a bit disgusted with myself.  

Because here’s what happens when a mind is trying to lean into God, and that’s what I’m doing, right?  That’s what I want to do.  I want to become more like my creator, which means I should think like him and act like him and want with everything I am to serve like him.  And so, when I’m feeding hundreds of people a day, and watching them enjoy the delicious coffee and salads and breads and appetizers and desserts and . . . the list goes on and on and is filled with all those yummy things you crave when trying to lose a few pounds . . . when I’m feeding all those people all those things, I can’t help but think of the people I’m not feeding.  The ones who don’t need to lose a few pounds.  The ones who haven’t eaten in days, whose bellies are round and swollen from malnutrition, whose legs are deformed from a lack of the minerals and vitamins essential for human existence.

The ones who need me to feed them.    

The Bible defines injustice as the abuse of power – when a stronger person abuses his or her power by taking from a weaker person what God alone has given the weaker person (life, liberty, dignity, fruits from love and labor).  That's easy to understand.  Of course, the Bible is even clearer on how we should be responding to injustice.  God calls us to love those who suffer injustice (Hebrews 13:3).  He commands us to “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”   

I recently read a book by Gary Haugen called Just Courage. Haugen claims that at the center of almost all suffering in the world is the problem of violence.  We can provide food, shelter, schools, and medicine to people who are hungry, homeless, uneducated, and sick, but those things won’t meet the needs created by the root cause of all their problems – violence.  Someone has violently taken their businesses, their homes, their freedom, their dignity, their livelihood.  Someone has been purposely unjust, and those suffering from the injustice don't need our charity.  It's wonderful to provide them with a meal or a pair of shoes, but we will not permanently change their lives unless we assist them in providing those things for themselves.  What they need is for the violence being committed against them to stop.  They need justice to be served. 

We’ve all heard that saying, “One doesn’t believe something by saying it is true or even by really believing it is true.  One believes something when they act as if it is true.” 

Why do I fail to act on what I claim is true?  I announce to the world what I believe, and then behave differently.  I want to follow Jesus.  I want my life to mean something, to make a difference in this broken world.  Yet, most of the time, I live as if I'm scared of where Jesus might lead me to actually make that difference.  Or I convince myself there is simply too much injustice in the world, that I can’t possibly make a dent in it, so why bother?  I use my fears and inadequacies to stop me dead in my tracks. 

Nothing stopped Jesus.

He did just what God sent him to do.  He paid the price for me, for us.  But make no mistake friends.  There is still a price to pay.  We are not being honest with people if we don’t make sure they understand there is a price to pay for following Christ.  Because there are battles left to fight - against hunger, against suffering, against evil, against sin, against injustice.  I can’t sit back and rest in the joy that comes from knowing I’ve been rescued.  I must now become a rescuer of others.       

Facing injustice is scary.  It’s overwhelming.  I don’t want to see the hunger and the poverty.  I don't want to see the swollen bellies.  I don’t want to see the deformed limbs.  I don’t want to see the sex trafficking and the slavery and the brutality inflicted on men and women and children.  But He has asked me to. 

Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing."

Lord, help me lean into you, hold onto you, trust unto you.

Lord, don’t let me be a good woman who does nothing.