I pray you had a blessed Thanksgiving. I hope your heart entered into this past week with a spirit of gratitude and that your time with friends, family, and God only heightened that gratitude.
No one wants to walk in ingratitude, and yet gratitude can be so quickly snatched from us.
What destroys thanksgiving? There are many threats: envy, pride, and selfishness. But one sneaky snatcher of gratitude is injustice. When the earth quakes with injustice, its tremors rattle our hearts and our trust.
When we experience injustice, questions swirl: Why would God allow this wrong to happen? Doesn’t God care about me? Won’t the wrongdoer be punished? Won’t the victim receive restitution?
Our hearts cry out: but why God? When the solid ground beneath us breaks in the earthquake of injustice, we can be left feeling uncertain, shaken, and fearful. In this broken soil, gratitude can slip away.
When the people of Nineveh repent and God forgives them, Jonah is dismayed. How could a just God let the Ninevites off the hook? They were a city of “unceasing evil” (Nah. 3:19), filled with violence, cruelty, sexual debauchery, and idolatry. Jonah is indignant. “But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”” (Jonah 4:1-3). Jonah is bitter and ungrateful.
Injustice is a gratitude snatcher.
The author of Ecclesiastes offers a solution for navigating injustice with gratitude intact. He says, “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun” (Eccl 8:14-15). The author looks around and his teeth grind when he sees the righteous being repaid evil for their good deeds and the wicked getting rewarded for their deceit. This is the beginning of an answer of how to process injustice without becoming ungrateful.
When you see injustice, remember that this life is just a vapor, a morning mist (James 4:14). We live in a broken world where the just Judge restrains himself from the fullness of his reign. Do not look at the injustice of this world and think that the King’s values are twisted. Do not grind your teeth at the Judge for rewards and punishments that appear malformed to you. Instead, consider the coming trial and the perfect reign to come.
The author of Ecclesiastes concludes his book with these words,
“Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil” (Eccl 12:13-14).
Likewise, David reassures us:
“For the Lord loves justice;
he will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.” (Psalm 37:28)
Judgment will come and it will be perfect. The evildoer will receive his just reward. When our eyes look to the just Judge for his ultimate justice, we can release our demands, step into gratitude by experiencing the joy that comes from the freedom of a life lived in trust of our just and faithful God. “Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.” Do you want to live that kind of life?
Injustice will come. Will you allow it to snatch your gratitude?
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