The Church gives us many opportunities to contemplate God’s inconceivable mercy, and that is a beautiful thing. Sometimes, however, we fail to see the beauty of God’s justice. Although justice is often associated with punishment or harshness, God’s justice is the fullness of fairness and generosity.
From the time we were kids, we’ve known the relief of having things play out as they should. We love watching someone open a birthday present featuring the only thing they’ve wanted all year long. We love to watch someone win a race when we know that they’ve trained their hardest. We love hearing news of a job promotion when we know the person being promoted is a hard worker. These things are good. These things feel fair. These things are just.
God is a god of justice. Therefore, that thing that you are chasing with all your time and resources you will indeed someday secure for yourself. The problem is, many of us are aiming far too low. “Where your heart is, there your treasure shall be also.”
What do you want in life? Whatever it is that you want, God will give it to you. You will receive exactly what you’ve ordered up. Because God is as just as he is merciful.
If you spend your time looking for ways to love the poor or the depressed or the sick around you, God will look for new ways to love you, and his love will continuously reach you in new and exhilarating ways. Eternity won’t be long enough for him to articulate his ever-ancient, ever-new love for you.
If, by contrast, as a Christian, you spend your life scrolling through details of other people’s lives and other people’s opinions, or you consistently consume media that neither causes you to grow nor provides you with rest (we need true, restorative rest more than ever), you will get what you seek: no rest, lots of drama, and stunted growth.
Each day, we decide what we secure for ourselves, and each day we solidify our choice in how we spend the single most precious, irreplaceable gift from God: our time.
We will have exactly what we’ve chased throughout our lives. Be it self-care or God-care or somewhere in between. In the end, God will give us what we have sought. Because he is just.
In a recent podcast episode, Abiding Together’s Heather Khym spoke about her struggle with the concept of self-care and the temptations that surround gauging how and when we need to use that label in our lives. “Who am I to judge [what I need] and when. We have to listen and always keep one ear open to the Lord. What are you saying? What are you calling me to? I don’t want to go do this thing if you’re not in this thing, where are you? And then I trust you’re going to give me the capacity to do it.”
If our loves are ordered, our life will become ordered. If we are first seeking the kingdom from a posture of humility and docility, we will know when to rest and when to play. Seeking God’s will is self-care.
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” God loves order. And he also loves rest. If we trust him fully, our lives will be ordered. Self-care wouldn’t be clawed at and treated like a lifeboat alongside a sinking vessel. We would work in the proper seasons, and likewise we would rest at the right times, that is, long before rest needed a “self-care” label to justify it. We would not feel frantic about getting our rest because it would be built into our lives, regularly.
If we abide in God’s plan for our coming and our going, we will find ourselves braced for the storms that will always find us. We will have what we need. God does not promise that we will coast through life, but he does promise over and over in the Scriptures that the righteous man will be “content in the land.”
“Happy are those who trust in the Lord, who rely on the Lord. They will be like trees planted by the streams, whose roots reach down to the water. They won’t fear drought when it comes; their leaves will remain green. They won’t be stressed in the time of drought or fail to bear fruit” (Jer 17:7-8).
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