in justice.

I applied for an internship last summer with a non-profit called "The Mocha Club" in Nashville. I was very blessed to be offered the opportunity to intern with them, but life took my husband a different direction and I turned it down. (Check them out though - amazing people. www.themochaclub.org) One thing that I'll never forget about this process was a quote I ran across on their website.

"If you remain neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." - Bishop Desmond Tutu

I read it and thought, hey, that's a pretty good quote. It reminded me of something my mom used to tell me when I was in elementary school. You know, if you see someone being bullied and you don't stand up for them, you're a bully too? Surely your mother gave you a similar talk when you were younger. And if she didn't, maybe that's why I'm louder than you. Blame my mom.

This quote has stuck with me ever since I read it. But it's not like it revolutionized my life or anything. At least, I never thought it did. Until recently.

To say the least, life for me my husband in 2011 has already proven to be nothing short of eventful. I've had to make some very difficult decisions - ones I didn't think I would face unless I worked in the corporate world, or at least until I was 45 years old. But like the guy on the Nationwide commercial says, life comes at you fast.

To make a long story not so long, I know now from experience that you can only look injustice in the face and walk past her desk for so long before you stop denying that you've become party to the injustice that you've seen. And not by initiating it, but by being neutral. By saying and doing nothing at all.

Injustice will try and appear distant. Out of focus. Like it has nothing to do with you. Not your country, not your salary, not your boyfriend, not your fault. It won't seem worth it. It will seem like it's not your fight. But the Gospel says something different.

It is your fight. It is absolutely your fight.

On this side of eternity, it will always be your fight. And if the church is being the church, it will be our fight.

In justice, we will carry each others burdens.
In justice, we will find holistic community. (thank you Pastor Jim.)
In justice, there is sacrifice.
In justice, hard decisions are made.
Injustice is too easy.

And I bet Satan makes it that way on purpose. Because he knows that you are scared and lazy. And he knows I am, too.

Sometimes in life, you are going to be faced with really hard decisions. I mean, life changing, rent compromising, tear ridden, up all night for days decisions. Ones that will show your true character, and if to no one else, to just yourself. And you will make these decisions in justice, or injustice.

Trust me when I say when you make a decision in justice, God will see you and know. He won't come down on a cloud and pat you on the back, but He will know.

And when you make a decision injustice, even if it's an "it's not my fight decision", you will most likely go on living your life. You will go home to your warm house and comfy bed and get up in the morning and drink coffee and go to your job and come home and do it all over again. And I don't know whether in justice, God will reveal your true character to you whether God will simply be just.

Let's pray He reveals your true character to you first.

I don't say this to scare you into doing the right thing. I say it because if He doesn't show you or you don't decide to stand up for what you know is right, you will slowly become more and more desensitized. God won't strike you with lightening or punish you by giving your kids cancer. He doesn't work that way. But something will happen.

Your heart will slowly become worn down. When you sing, you won't mean it. When you dance, you won't feel it. You'll lose your zest. Your compassion. You'll lose sight of the goal. And you won't realize it until you're blaming God for that something that's "just missing".

I'm pleading with you friends, make the hard decisions. I promise you, it's worth it. There are people on the other side of your sacrifice. They are the same people you've been sacrificing while you've been letting injustice live and breathe in your life.

While at first it seemed embarrassing, as my current job description goes from "Youth Pastor" to "Waitress", I now feel lucky that God has decided to give me a dose of this early in life.

Plus, I get more time with the 7 pound terror I like to call Lilah. Oh, and my husband, too.