"The term righteousness means living in a right relationship with God, and justice is living in a right relationship with others"We named our daughters, Adelaide Justice and Mercy Renee, after what we believe is a life with God. Adelaide's middle name, Justice, is word in scripture that is often interchangeable with the word righteousness. The term righteousness means living in a right relationship with God, and justice is living in a right relationship with others. In a criminal case we say that the good guy got justice when the bad guy goes to jail. Acting justly means giving others what they deserve. From outside the judicial world this looks like: taking care of the needy, the voiceless, the helpless. Put simply, it means loving others.Where justice and righteousness become intertwined is that you truly cannot be in right relationship with others (justice) until you are in right relationship with God (righteousness). How can you love others well without knowing God's love yourself? Scripture tells us that "God is love" (1 John 4). It is my belief that, without God, love on this earth would not exist. We want our daughters to value a relationship with a loving God and therefore live justly by loving others.
Mercy's name is a little more straightforward in its meaning. Mercy is obviously a virtue and it is defined as compassion. We so, so much desire that our daughters seek God's kingdom above anything else and that means loving Him and loving others. It means being compassionate or "having concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others." Mercy is the attitude that moves a person to action, specifically the action of justice. You can certainly see someone's hurt, feel concern and never do anything about it. Justice is taking care of their hurt, offering a kind word at minimum. But you have to begin with compassion, with mercy.
Micah 6:8 declares, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?" This is a life with God. Seems pretty simple, but when you start to act out these things the church goes from tame to tumultuous. I have met some people that I have felt compassion for- their lives aren't usually in the best shape. But they are needy, messy and downright complicated. They require a lot of attention and time and patience. On a large scale, I think of human trafficking victims. Holy crow! Where do you even begin? If I acted justly, caring for the hurt in the lives of the 70 million trafficking victims there are, I am definitely not going to have time to clean the living room. Even if I tried, what is the proper method? What is the reason it's happening? Talk about needy, messy and complicated. On a smaller scale, what about the man or woman who comes to church glassy eyed and sporting a coke nail? Or the pretty girl in the back row, who wears her skirt a little too short because she never got the right kind of attention at home? Or the clean cut husband and dad of two who struggles with pride and arrogance? Have you ever tried to love, to invest in some body like this? There's uncertainty of the outcome, the risk of it not going well, and the rush of adrenaline when their lives and yours are changed forever because of taking the risk to love them. Having moments when all you can do is pray for deliverance. Could you say that of skydiving? Of swimming with sharks? Of a secret mission? Heck yeah! How many times have you seen someone cross themselves or straight out pray "Lord help me!" before jumping out of a plane? I've watched enough reality television to know that it happens pretty often! When you live life according to God's requirements: acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with Him you live a life of adventure that is similar to the likes of a free fall.
"(Any idea what we might name a future child?)"One could argue that seeking a life of adventure is not a good reason to live a life with God, and its not. In Matthew 23, Jesus is pretty peeved with the super religious people of the day and he gives it to them good. And in verse 23 he tells them that they do a great job following all the religious rules of the day (insert sarcasm here), but they stink at the more important things quoted as, "justice, and mercy and faithfulness." He says they shouldn't have been neglecting those while doing all the churchy stuff. Obedience is why we are to live a life with God. The adventure is just a by-product. Jesus is requiring obedience of those religious fellows and that obedience includes acting justly, loving mercy and walking faithfully with God. (Any idea what we might name a future child?)
For us, obedience to these commands includes a trip to Haiti in the next year. Don't get us wrong we love to travel, and if it were just us two and we were rolling in the dough you would never see us because we would be getting our passports stamped. But as our daughters have arrived and we've gotten older and busier, travelling to Haiti for a mission trip, we are learning, is beginning to require more sacrifice. When we were teens, a mission trip in the summer meant selling candy bars and hoagies, and maybe a difficult conversation with the bosses of our temporary summer jobs. Now it means using vacation time, arranging for our kids while we're gone, finding people to watch our home, and just finding time in the craziness of raising a toddler and 2 month old to prepare. Not to mention the ache of leaving our kids for 10 days. So, why bother with all that? Obedience. We desire to act justly, and love mercy, and as we walk humbly with God, praying for his direction, we see trips like this fall into our hearts and paths. And though there are uncertainties in this obedience (see above about the sacrifice--how on earth will we make all this happen?!), and the risk of it not going well, we know from past experiences in Haiti that there is also the rush of changed lives for the kingdom of God. That is adventure!
