Justice And Mercy Are Interwoven Into The Fabric Of The Universe

“What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8 - Justice and mercy are not only embedded deep within our souls but they are indispensable to God’s plan for us and they are interwoven into the very fabric of the universe. We have an innate sense of justice, and we have an inherent affinity for mercy. We can respond to almost any situation with an eye towards restoring justice or increasing mercy, and the key to knowing which is which is to walk humbly with our God. For every Ammon who handed out justice with a sword, there is an Aaron who humbly submitted himself to being thrown into prison. Sometimes we’re like Alma and Amulek watching the martyrdom of the believers in Ammonihah and we want to plead with the Lord to give us the strength to smite down the foes of righteousness. And sometimes we’re like Nephi, being asked to strike down a wicked man and not wanting any part of it. The Lord asks us to do justly because we live in a fallen world and there is so much hate and fear and malice and injustice, that any time we do the right thing, we make the world a slightly less awful place. And the Lord asks us to love mercy because all of us are just as lost and confused and weak and inadvertently offensive to one another that the only way we’re going to get through this all without getting so enraged with all the injustice that we just start striking one another down is if we have mercy and forgiveness in our hearts. In Alcoholics Anonymous there is what’s called the Serenity Prayer - “Lord Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” We have to love mercy because there is so much that is unjust about the world and about the way we treat one another and about the way that we treat ourselves and we can’t fix it all at once. God Himself can’t fix it all at once without destroying the whole point of his plan of salvation. We have to have forgiveness in our hearts because the world is messed up and for the most part we are all just flailing around making it messier. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some things that we can change. That doesn’t mean that there are moments where we can act honorably, treat one another with respect, change some small corner of the world and make it better. It takes courage to stand up for justice in a world that is mostly chaos. It takes serenity to accept that despite our best efforts, there will still be a lot of chaos outside and inside ourselves. And it takes wisdom and humility to turn to the Lord and to have Him show us when we should dispense justice and when we should dispense mercy.