Angry Enough to Act

Arise, O LORD, in your anger;
rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice....
God is a righeous judge,
a God who expresses his wrath every day. (Psalm 7:6, 11)

This psalm, on the surface, makes God sound like a vengeful, angry God who is perched to strike and kill whoever doesn't obey him. Passages like this give many people the impression that the God of the Bible, or at least, the God of the Old Testament, is really rather hateful and lacking in compassion. In other words, they charge God with being less compassionate than humans are.

But on a closer reading, the writer (David) viewed these expressions of God's character as proof of just the opposite: that God deeply cares about people. This poem rebuffs the idea that God is apathetic to the injustices that people suffer. Far from sitting back, disinterested, feet propped up on his desk, unmoved by our plights, God gets riled up when innocent people are abused. What's implied here by God's intense anger towards the perpetrators of such injustices is stated explicitly in Psalm 9:12: For he who avenges blood remembers; he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.

God cares. It isn't God who is lacking compassion. It's humanity. And if he cares so deeply about injustices in his world, so should I. I must care too. And rather than sit back apathetically, I need to do whatever I can to alleviate the plight of the victims.

Lord, help me to discern how and where to fight for the abused and oppressed. Amen.