Justice In Just Us II

I was sitting at Panera by myself, reading the book of Hosea & listening to my iPod. I love spending time with the Lord here. The environment is usually just perfect for me. I got up for a minute, & when I had returned to my seat, about to put my headphones back in & check out from the world in front of me, a frustrated sigh from across the dining area caught my ear. I looked across the room to see a family arguing over what seemed to be the daughter's homework. The girl appeared to be about 10 years old, & also the mediator between her arguing parents. What I could hear was an attempt from the young girl to remind her parents of methods they had learned in counseling to manage & control their anger. She tried justifying each of their actions & arguments to the other parent, but her voice seemed to be lost & ignored. The more she tried to speak up, the more frustrated she became as she held back tears & frequently put her face in her hands. Her parents seemed to have lost love & respect for one another, & it was evident that in the midst of their controlled anger & chaos contained in the small Panera booth, all their daughter wanted was peace. She wanted her family restored.

As I sat there, witnessing the reality of hurt in each of their hearts surfacing & fighting for a chance to be expressed, I began to pray for peace. Although my parents separated when I was young, I never remember hearing them argue. Ever. My heart ached for this young girl who was in the midst of this. While battling her own emotional instability from dealing with this recurrent situation, she was the mediating voice of premature reason.

I couldn't go back to my music or my reading. Injustice interrupted me & I didn't want to ignore it. I sat silently & fought back in prayer. I think that any situation where lies are triumphing over love is a situation of injustice & calls for intervention. It calls for going into the enemy's camp & taking back what was stolen, even if it was stolen from someone else. I thought about David's mighty men, & how they broke through the battle lines of the Philistines, risking their lives, solely to bring back a drink of water from the well of Bethlehem for David (1st Chronicles 11:15-19). They fought not for their gain, but David's. They contended on behalf of another - this was intercession.

As I continued to think about justice & intercession, the Lord reminded me of what I was reading in Hosea. He said, "I am going to raise up families of restoration like I raised up a prostitute out of desolation." Then He said, "But first, I need Hoseas to partner with." Hosea was a faithful servant of God.

"When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to him, "Go, take yourself a wife of whoredom & have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord. So he went & took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, & she conceived & bore him a son."

-Hosea 1:2-3

Hosea didn't contribute to an offering. He didn't simply say a prayer, & he didn't write a song to raise awareness about unfaithfulness. Not that any of that is bad in itself, but the Lord was calling him to do more. He didn't meet God in the middle of His direction for him. He was fully obedient. Hosea took upon himself the fullness of God's invitation for partnership with Him. This meant giving everything of himself. The heart of his effort, affection, emotion, finances, & time were sewn into the restoration of his prostitute wife, Gomer, as a prophetic act of the Lord's restoration of unfaithful Israel. Hosea answered the invitation to enter in to the emotions of God's heart for His bride.

When I thought about this, I thought about how beautiful it was of Hosea to sacrifice his love & himself for a "damaged goods" bride who didn't even know how to love him in return. I wondered if it was because Hosea was too confident in the Lord's love for himself, that earthly love, or lack-thereof, didn't affect him. This is the type of people I felt the Lord saying He was going to raise up & partner with - people confident enough in their love from the Father to give all of themselves away for the sake of another, regardless of any in return. Agape love. In what greater way could we be like Jesus? He is going to raise up & partner with Hoseas to raise up & restore the lost, the broken, the widow, the orphan..

I felt, in that moment at Panera, the Lord revealing to me that His desire for justice is for partnership through us, the body & bride of Christ. Oh, that we would be a people so confident in the love of our Father, so trusting in His plans & so obedient to His will, that we would live & move through a partnering relationship with Him. That we would freely give & risk all of ourselves for the desires of our Lord, like David's mighty men did for David. That we would not just meet the Lord in the middle of His direction for us, but that we would be a people fully obedient, fully risking, & fully sacrificing for the sake our Lord. Oh, the glory of intercession & the beauty of partnership. Raise up Hoseas in the midst of injustice, God. That we would partner with You for the restoration of all things.

"Bend me, Lord..."