Power Not Yet Seen

When you look at the above photo, does your heart throb for the weed, crying over life forced to endure destitute situation? This year I began to pray, "Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours." I'm discovering God answers that prayer. Tears often flow from my eyes when I pray for the persecuted church, slaves, refugees, orphans, prisoners and victims of abuse. In agony for the plight of others, my prayer has become, "Lord, keep me sensitive to the pain of others. Do not let me numb it out. Remind me You are the One who holds righteous judgment. Show me that You are good, and Your goodness is unscathed by evil running rampant on earth. Use the despair I feel at evil's wretched tortures to grow a desperate longing in my soul for Home. Open the eyes of my heart to the depth, length, height and width of Your inexhaustible love for me. Whisper to my spirit that Your love covers each broken heart, reaches into the deepest darkness, embraces the loneliest soul.  Reveal to me Your glory in Your word, so I may firmly believe Your righteousness and holiness remain untouched by even the most unspeakable evil. Let my hope be You alone."

Are you discouraged, feeling God denies the innocent justice or delays His wrath on men acting evil? Do you struggle to hate the sin rather than the persecutor- a fellow human? Is your heart crying out, a last call to God before you avoid pain altogether? 

Friend, read the passage bellow with me. Know God is good, even when it's hidden from human eyes. Know He waits patiently, not wanting any to spend eternity separated from Him. Rest, because only He holds the responsibility of justice and redemption.

“Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment?
    Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?

There are those who move boundary stones;
    they pasture flocks they have stolen.

They drive away the orphan’s donkey
    and take the widow’s ox in pledge.

They thrust the needy from the path
    and force all the poor of the land into hiding.

Like wild donkeys in the desert,
    the poor go about their labor of foraging food;
    the wasteland provides food for their children.

They gather fodder in the fields
    and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.

Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked;
    they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.

They are drenched by mountain rains
    and hug the rocks for lack of shelter. 

The fatherless child is snatched from the breast;
    the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.

Lacking clothes, they go about naked;
    they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.

They crush olives among the terraces;
    they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.

The groans of the dying rise from the city,
    and the souls of the wounded cry out for help.
    But God charges no one with wrongdoing.

“There are those who rebel against the light,
    who do not know its ways
    or stay in its paths.

When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up,
    kills the poor and needy,
    and in the night steals forth like a thief. 

The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk;
    he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’
    and he keeps his face concealed.

In the dark, thieves break into houses,
    but by day they shut themselves in;
    they want nothing to do with the light.

For all of them, midnight is their morning;
    they make friends with the terrors of darkness.

“Yet they are foam on the surface of the water;
    their portion of the land is cursed,
    so that no one goes to the vineyards.

As heat and drought snatch away the melted snow,
    so the grave snatches away those who have sinned.

The womb forgets them,
    the worm feasts on them;
the wicked are no longer remembered
    but are broken like a tree. 

They prey on the barren and childless woman,
    and to the widow they show no kindness.

But God drags away the mighty by his power;
    though they become established, they have no assurance of life.

He may let them rest in a feeling of security,
    but his eyes are on their ways.

For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone;
    they are brought low and gathered up like all others;
    they are cut off like heads of grain.

From Job 24