Let Your Glorious Justice Shine Forth!

They crush your people, LORD,

hurting those you claim as your own.

They kill widows and foreigners

and murder orphans.

“The LORD isn’t looking,” they say,

“and besides, the God of Israel doesn’t care.”

Think again, you fools! Psalm 94:5-8

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE LIKE seeing our children being mistreated or abused to make our blood boil with a determination to protect them and punish the people who have hurt them. It begins with the kids who bite in the nursery, includes the unfair coaches or teachers, and extends to the girlfriends or boyfriends who break their hearts. Of course, sometimes a far greater evil is done to the child we cherish, a far more injurious hurt.

So what are we to do with our raging desire for vengeance? What are we to do when it seems that the evildoers in our children’s lives will never experience true justice?

Psalm 94 gives us words to pray, words to plead to the God of vengeance that his glorious justice —far more pure and powerful than our own —would shine forth into the darkness of our situation. It reminds us in mocking tones that the Lord is not deaf to what is being said. He is not blind to what has been done. He is not ignorant about the private thoughts and motives of the perpetrators. Psalm 94 invites us to entrust to God our demands that the wrongdoers pay —to trust the Lord’s timing, his way, and his perfect justice. And until that day comes, the Lord is our fortress. Our confidence in him enables us to wait without being consumed by frustration and anger.

Lord, when doubts fill my mind about whether those who have hurt my child will get what they deserve, your comfort gives me renewed hope and cheer. Help me to trust that your perfect justice will be perfectly satisfied either in the punishment they receive or in the punishment borne for them on the cross. You are my fortress where I find safety from cynicism and despair. You are the mighty Rock where I hide to experience your comfort.