In our longing for circumstances to change, it is easy to look to other people to get it done. To blame and demand and try to manipulate the situation to get what we want.
We can do this on a small scale with our family and friends or on a larger scale with our civic leaders and community elders. And though it’s right and good to try to bring to change to corrupt systems or undo painful patterns in our family life, humans will never be our ultimate source of help. It’s a role that only God can fill.
When I try to change my husband or children on my own, it’s manipulation. I’m operating out of a desire to control which is basically the same motivation as witchcraft. Yikes!
Even if my intentions are good, I don’t have the right to usurp another person’s free will. Not even God does that. Everyone has a right to choose what she/he wants to do. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences for those choices, but the choices should always be ours. Anyone person or power who tries to enforce its own will on another in an ungodly way is overstepping their God-given authority.
Sometimes I get grumpy at my husband (or my friend/family) because he’s not loving me the way that I want to be loved. I can request that he does this, and he usually does because he is kind, but he does not have to give into all my requests. If I get angry and cold when he doesn’t treat me the way that I want to be treated, I’m being manipulative. And that is the opposite of God’s Kingdom. Only the Holy Spirit can convict a person. I am not a junior Holy Spirit, though I sometimes try to be.
When we are looking only to the government to bring about the changes that we want to see in society, we have misplaced our hopes. They will never be able to bring about the fullness of justice and righteousness because they are fallible humans. Of course, we should still try to change our systems through these avenues, but ultimate justice comes from God, whether or not humans are in line with him.
Psalm 12:5 says, “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise,” says the LORD; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs.”
God will bring about justice if people fail to. It’s better for everyone if we get into what he’s doing, but if we resist in our own stubborn path, he will bring it about anyway because he has promised to do so. For 400 years, the Israelites groaned under the oppression of the Egyptians. He gave Pharaoh a ton of chances (which Pharaoh refused), but then their time was up, and God arose.
God will remain faithful because he cannot deny himself. This is our only sure anchor of hope. It doesn’t matter what people do in the end because in the end, God will accomplish his purposes whether we want him to or not.
So whatever situation we find ourselves in, whether it be tension in the home or larger issues of justice in society, we can continue to have hope because our sights are not set only on people. If we have our hope placed in humanity alone, we will grow tired and bitter because people will always fail us in one way or another. If we have our hope placed correctly in the God of justice and peace, then we can work with him to see his plans fulfilled on earth as it is in heaven.
“For he (the righteous) is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.” -Psalm 112:7
