Real Hope: Love and JusticeIsampula

God's Love and Justice

I have come to understand God’s love and justice through the life of Jesus. Jesus fueled justice with love rather than hatred, taking up a different type of courage. He understood people for who they truly were, He listened to the stories of the marginalized over meals, He sat with the complexities of life with a woman at a well, and He invited His followers to participate in the work of upholding human dignity, the awe of creation, and faith in a God who will have the final say. 

As I read the life of Jesus, I learn that love-fueled justice will sometimes require me to listen and care about other people’s lives when their experiences have few commonalities with my own. There will be other times when this same love-fueled justice will require me to stay listening, even when there is so much in common that it causes my heart to break with the knowledge that a similar injustice could happen to me or my nearest and dearest.

I had the opportunity to speak with someone who is on the front line of pursuing love-fueled justice by intercepting the work of child traffickers. I asked him what motivates him to risk his own life every day for the cause of justice. He told me he carries the stories of those children who have been freed and the dream that in his lifetime this injustice will cease. 

Written by Kath Henry