Asking for justice

A few weeks ago I saw Trade, a film about human trafficking. It was disturbing—though it wasn’t explicit, it was graphic in places, enough so that I couldn’t get the images out of my head for a few days. Yet it didn’t impact my heart in the way I had been expecting. Why not?

I was trying to stir myself up with outrage and anger. I was trying to manufacture a heart for this topic. But I can’t look to a movie, a documentary, a book, or a speech to stimulate passion about injustice. I can’t expect to derive the endurance and motivation I need to pray about this topic from the efforts of flawed humans. The most I can expect is that such efforts may direct me to the L-rd.

Going to G-d in prayer needs to be my response when I see any injustice. Watching a dramatization of injustice and feeling kind of angry about it is not sufficient; watching a real-life injustice and saying, “That’s not right” is not enough. I think we live in a world in which the recognition of inequity and vocalization of our feelings about it often substitute for truly pursuing justice.

What do we do instead? Bottom line: prayer is the only thing we have to truly combat injustice. This weapon of warfare seems foolish to the world because it’s invisible, and so it doesn’t seem to directly affect the problem. I’m not saying we shouldn’t give to the poor or train police to recognize possible victims of human trafficking. Those things are necessary and good. But we are treating the symptoms, not the disease. The disease is sin, and all the charitable donations in the world can’t cure it.

As long as we live in a fallen world, injustice will exist. Only prayer can change that—only by appealing to a higher court and a just Judge can we affect the unfairness we see all around us. Prayer means hearts being changed right now in countries all around the world. Prayer means bowls filling up in heaven (Revelation 5:8). Prayer means people getting prepared for the King’s return, for an upheaval and restructuring of justice.

Coming back to my original thought in writing this post: if we pray, our hearts will be changed too. Not only do we have the ear of the Judge, we also have access to His heart. It’s a two-way street. If we pray, recognizing prayer as the only solution to problems like human trafficking, we will begin to understand the Judge’s heart. We’ll begin to feel what He feels and realize how injustice and sin are so offensive to such a holy Being. Only the understanding of G-d’s heart that comes through prayer will produce the passion needed to sustain that prayer for the long haul.

In a nutshell: you have to pray if you want to want to pray. Yes, the L-rd sometimes supernaturally gives people burdens in prayer, and sometimes does use outside influences like sermons or movies to plant ideas in our hearts…but we can’t manufacture the desire to pray or rely on others to manufacture it for us.

I’m preaching to myself. I’ve had a hard time engaging in intercession when I’m in the prayer room lately because my heart has been dead. But I can’t stir myself up. If I want to ask for justice and really care about what I’m doing, I actually have to ask for justice, and ask G-d to enable me to pray with endurance and with an understanding of His heart.