Psalm 103 - “Working” Righteousness
 6 The LORD works righteousness
      and justice for all the oppressed. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting
      the LORD’s love is with those who fear him,
      and his righteousness with their children’s children- 18 with those who keep his covenant
      and remember to obey his precepts.
How does “work” righteousness and justice? What does that mean? It sounds kind of weird as a description of what God does, like when you a hairdresser is going to “work their magic”… it means they’re going to do what they do, and so it is with God. He’ll do what He does. He is just, and he’ll give the oppressed justice.
Justice to many means never being oppressed in the first place. That isn’t what it means to God. That should be obvious, or else we wouldn’t have oppressed people. In fact, the oppressed we always have. And why? Does God hate them? Not in the least. After all, they’re the ones who will get His justice.
All of them? Well, it says so, so yes. Is justice salvation? No, it is not. But, Jesus was sent to die for their sins. Do they all accept His sacrifice? No. But, for all who accept it, the gift is enough to cover them and their sins.
Then, there are those who actually live in the fear of the Lord… this means living in reverence of God, believing Him, obeying Him. By doing so, you keep God’s covenant. Raise your children to live in that covenant, and the Lord will not only be in their lives while they are in your house, but He will remain with them their entire life, and so on through the generations… except for those who discard or forget Him.
I do not justify or attempt to explain how or why this is the right way for God to be. But, as a father with children, and knowing those times love pours out of me, and what I will do for my kids, what I will not do, and when I would leave them to their own devices, I can get idea of how God is with us. I cannot explain it logically, because these aren’t the rules I would logically come up with, but I look at human nature, my children’s and my own, and I just understand how my actions impact theirs, and how I impact their emotions. There are just certain needs that they have, and certain ways in which I must nurture them… and certain ways in which I must leave them alone if they are to ever grow into their full potential. Loving them fully sometimes means leaving them alone. It just does… thought it doesn’t always feel good. Letting them suffer for their actions is sometimes the right thing to do, because rescuing them would simply justify the next time they do it. Giving an inheritance to a rotten child would reduce the reduce the value of the inheritance of the loving obedient child. It is the perfect miniature example of God and His cosmic relationships with us. And on that level I get it. An atheist would say that God should be better than that, but they don’t get it. It is people who are NOT like this who need to become better, because God is already like that. And so I do not justify the rules, or apologize for them. But I see them, and I live them, by understanding that part of me that comes from being made in God’s image, I can therefore understand the larger image that is God’s.