I've subscribed to a newsletter on Substack called The Contemplative Activist, and I really appreciate her perspective on justice and prayer. (If you'd like to subscribe to her work, you can go here.)
In her September 2 newsletter, she says:
The hardest thing about justice work is that true justice is only guaranteed when the Kingdom of God is fully realized. Not today. Not next week. Maybe not in our lifetime. Not until the restoration of all things.
And when the realization of justice is elusive, we have to find a way to anchor our trust in the truth of God’s justice, despite what our reality looks like. This requires deep formation.
I really appreciated this part too:
I believe there are at least 4 things we can do to keep our hearts soft and our hope alive when justice evades us – for now.
1. Pray without ceasing
I know this doesn’t always feel helpful, but what we feel is not always what is true. Prayer is powerful, and we are not privy to what is happening in the unseen world as a result of our faithfulness to pray. It can be easy to give up in prayer when we don’t see answers, but we must persist, trusting that God is moving in ways we cannot see and on a timeframe we cannot comprehend.2. Understand time differently
The Bible tells us that God is not slow as we understand slowness (2 Peter 3:9). God moves outside of time and space, and that is truly beyond our ability to fathom. God is just and will set all things right in God’s own time.3. Look for small wins
While the “big justice” we were hoping for seems unlikely to happen, we can look for “small justices” in the midst of the struggle...
4. Stay anchored in hope
No one likes spoilers to an epic story, usually. We have to remember that we are just a small part of a much bigger story. And we are not the main characters in it. We’ve been given a spoiler for this story, which can keep us centered when the plot twists horribly in the middle. Remember, the end is coming, when justice wins and the King reigns eternal.
Amen and amen!
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