Sometimes we hear things or see things or read things that we can’t forget. Sometimes we wish desperately that we could forget them. Sometimes we’re willing to give every ounce of who we are to keep on remembering. Sometimes it’s a mixture of both.
I just can’t get it out of my mind – this passage in Proverbs 31 (verses 6-7) about poverty and injustice. It’s the verse that says to let the poor drink beer so that they might forget their misery and anguish. It won’t stop running through my mind that there are people so impoverished that Wisdom would say to let them drink so that they won’t have to remember their misery! The amount of despair that is revealed in these verses makes my heart ache so much I wish I could forget it. And yet, this amount of very real, everyday heartache that people experience is something I don’t want to forget.
Because. I want to do something about it. It is clear this desire I have is something God desires. The verses that follow say:
‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.’
This is our job. We must speak up for others—be a voice for the voiceless. This call has become increasingly poignant to me; it increasingly pierces my heart and demands action. God really cares about justice, doesn’t he? I was never really aware of this before, but now I see it so clearly. Because I am made in his image, the passion for justice burns within me. I want to defend the rights of others that they may have all that God dreamed up for them.
May all men and women, rich and poor, and people of every tribe and tongue in all the earth know their value, dignity, and worth in God’s eyes. May they experience the degree to which he values and esteems them through all the human beings they encounter in their lives. And may you and I come to know the part which we can play to answer this call for justice.
