These days, we are surrounded by the hurting.
Our family has been praying for exhausted Black friends who’ve felt the effects of racism their whole lives. “I can’t sleep,” a neighbor told us. “I’ve had nightmares. It could’ve been my husband.”
We remember those who have died and are still dying from Covid-19. We minister to the bereaved and pray for family members reeling from grief.
During the protests in NYC, we often thought of a neighbor in the local police precinct whose wife told us he was working nonstop. We anxiously awaited news from a military family — the husband and father had just returned home after months overseas and was told he might be deployed to the protests.
Our church has been unable to meet physically for months, and we fear for those drifting from the faith. Cancer, trauma, sick babies, marital strife, and mental illness don’t relent for pandemics and protests.
It has felt as if we’ve taken up residence in an emergency room, scrambling to triage patients as we watch more pour in through the doors.
Recently, with all these pressing needs around me, I had been finding it difficult to pray, to feel God was near, and to hear him in his Word. He had started some deep work a few weeks into quarantine as I processed a slow but long-coming burnout. But that was put on hold, and for a while, it seems I’d only been able to think and feel over issues of racial injustice.
Then one day, as I put my toddler down for a nap, I wondered how I could approach God about personal restoration while engaged with the pressing issues of injustice in our country.
I swayed with my daughter in the carrier, and the thought came gently.
“God, you care about both. Why can’t I?”
If I had space to love my children while lamenting and responding to systemic racism, why wouldn’t God be able to care for each of his own while breaking down strongholds of evil in the world?
The needs are so great that it is hard not to feel like it’s either/or. The world is constantly telling us we need to choose sides for those we care about — to choose which one of God’s commands we should obey.
Do you care about the health of the immunocompromised (and stay isolated at home) or the historic oppression of Black Americans (and attend protests)? Do you tend to the flock God has given you or do you honor his image-bearers outside church walls? Do you care about your law-enforcement neighbor or the marginalized who Jesus taught were your neighbors? Do you seek to be an agent of change in the world or a faithful mom at home? Do you want mercy or justice? Do you pray or do you act?
But this is a trap.
God does not pit the cries of the hurting against one another in a cosmic duel. He is not conflicted in himself. He does not need to simplistically choose the more worthwhile of two good causes or the lesser of two evils (though, admittedly, sometimes we do). His love, power, and ways have no limit, and as we consider who he is, he destroys the false dichotomies we too easily take as a given.
Consider that the God of Scripture is the God who punishes the wicked AND turns persecutors to martyrs. (Ex. 34:7, Acts 9)
He tells his people to act justly AND to pray without ceasing. (Is. 58, 1 Thes. 5:17)
He responds to individual sufferers AND the collective cries of the oppressed. (Ps. 28, Ex. 2:24)
He calls us to care for the widows, orphans, and strangers AND to be diligently faithful in our own homes. (Deut. 10:18, Eph. 6:4, Tit. 2:3-5)
He teaches us to be silent before him at matters too great for us AND to speak up for those who have no voice. (Ps. 131, Prov. 31:8-9)
He is full of grace AND truth. (Jn. 1:14)
He loves justice AND mercy. (Ps. 33:5, Mic. 6:8)
He upholds the sparrows AND the universe. (Matt. 10:28, Heb 1:3)
I know this isn’t as simple as it looks on paper. Walking in the world requires discernment and wisdom. We need nuance and God’s voice as we make difficult, sometimes heartbreaking, either/or decisions. Still, I want to be fiercely both/and in all the ways that reflect him.
So by his grace, I will pray for the safety of my NYPD neighbor and for police reform. I will keep learning and educating, following up on the summer self-study material my daughter asked for on African American history, and I will step back from conversations when I don’t yet have the weight of experience or knowledge to contribute. I will ask God to restore me from burnout and for the healing of the nations. l will seek his help to be faithful in keeping place and leveraging my place for his glory. While considering with others around the table what God would have us do outside of my home, I will serve brunch and referee sibling fights inside it.
I am loved by the God who loves the world. And in this knowledge, I will rock my baby to sleep as I pray for his justice to roll down like waters, his righteousness an ever-flowing stream.