How then shall I live?

Written by A Seeking Heart

So, Lord, here I am spending time with You on the first morning of “The Justice Conference”. Father God, please help me to make the most of these two days. I have never been involved in anything like this before. I want to be open to You speaking to me.

Before I leave home a quick google to see what justice means, to set some expectation of what I could possibly hear.
Justice – Just behaviour or treatment
Fair play
Equity
Impartiality
Non-partisanship
Fairness in the way people are dealt with

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Mmm…. Who decides what is fair?

Many new ideas and concepts
My experience of The Justice Conference was one of many ideas and concepts which I had never really thought about. Too busy with my head down working, studying, living and being a wife and mother.

I was so encouraged by the great minds in our country who I was listening to and that they all loved the Lord Jesus and wanted to serve Him with truth and mercy.

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I heard views I agreed with and views I did not agree with.

Embracing ‘disequilibrium’
Waves of emotion swept over me as I listened and grappled with what was being said and tried to respond to questions we were asked to consider. I was in a state of discomfort and disequilibrium, as one speaker so eloquently explained.

Lord, please help me not to run away from this disequilibrium, but to stay with it until You speak the truth to me about me and about where we are as a country today and how to live going forward.

I could no longer hold back the tears when Tristan Pringle shared during the session “Navigating the Deep Waters of Identity in SA”. Why were tears flowing? I was feeling his pain as he shared about growing up in my hometown East London, where we lived in two different worlds at separate times.

Where had I been the past 30 years of my Christian walk?

What had I done to contribute to the sorry mess our country is in?

What had I not done?

How then shall I live?

About seeing
A statement was made “What you see is not what you are looking at, but what you are looking with”.
What am I looking with LORD?

Let me set aside the statements which were made about “white privilege” and “what your white people’s grandparents did is affecting my child” and “restitution needs to take place and it starts with the whites” and rather contemplate on “How then shall I live”?

Let me embrace other statements of “There is more to me than being black”, “I am still experiencing racial oppression”, “black people are not a single monolithic group”.
Lord, there is a cry here of “see me as me, a human being”. How then shall I live?
A statement “What it feels like to be part of a race that was not meant to be?”
Lord, how can he feel like that, as if he has no value? How then shall I live?

Let me continue to ponder, long after the end of the conference, on other questions raised:
How can theology help justice? Who benefits? Who is excluded? Who is hurt? What are my assumptions and conclusions about situations and people? Are they really based on the bible?
What is my next best step towards faithfulness to bring justice?

Let me work towards encouraging all my siblings in Christ, as we were encouraged, to know that we are not each other’s enemy. The devil is. To work towards loving and understanding each other and stop viewing each other in debilitating categories and boxes. Let’s not perpetuate new injustices by the way we respond to the past. Let’s use the template of how Jesus lived to “look with” and bring justice where we live.

As I look at the word RESTORE set up high, my cry is “Restore me Lord to where You want me to be, doing what You want me to do. Forgive me for being so busy with my stuff and not paying attention to what was going on around me.”

How then shall I live?
Micah 6 v 8
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?”

About Adèle Christian:
Married to Silvanus. We have been blessed with a son Caleb. I have recently, but temporarily, retired from about 36 years of overworking in IT. Currently awaiting further instructions from the Most High on this new season of my life. I am so grateful for this time to do different things, have time to study, research, go down rabbit holes and to be refined and restored. I attend Every Nation Church at N1 City.