Jonathon got up from the table in fierce anger; on that second day of the feast he did not eat, because he was grieved at his fathers shameful treatment of David.
1 Samuel 20:34
Father, break my heart for what break yours.
Injustice — mistreatment of another person or thing — should grieve our hearts like it’s grieves God’s.
Jonathan loved David and saw all the good in him. He couldn’t believe his father, king Saul, would want to harm David. But as Jonathon told his father why David was unable to be at the feast, Saul became infuriated and tried to kill Jonathon as well. Jonathon was angry, but more than anger he was grieved at the injustice he witnessed at the hands of his father and he got up to leave.
We live in a broken world. A world filled with injustice of all types. Sadly, we tend to get bent on one, maybe two, different injustices, Lacking compassion for any of the others. We think the injustice we see is greater than the injustice another sees, but God sees them all.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18
We can’t single-handedly stop all the injustice in the world, but we can open our eyes to see all the injustice, and like Jonathan, grieve them. Seeing injustice and recognizing it for what it is, allowing it to grieve us, will bring compassion in us to make a change.
God desires to change the world but for there to be change in the world there first must be change in each of us.
We are all created in Gods image. As image bearers of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We have to look through the eyes of God and see what he sees: all things created by God and all things created good. So if all things are created by God and he called them all good, then when something is coming against them our heart should hurt.
The hurt in our heart is grief. Grief utilized for healing is compassion in action.
After my youngest son Hayden passed away, my entire family was grieving. Grief can cause much anger and sadness, and I knew if we didn’t look to the injustices of others we could allow our grief to hold us down. But by putting our grief into action for the hurting of others we grew compassion for their hurts. We didn’t allow grief to hold us down, but we utilized grief to help others up. Over a weekend, my husband and I took our family into a poorer area of town to help clean the streets and homes, so that beauty could be brought into the ashes they had. Being able to help the elderly and families in this community, helped our hearts to heal even more.
Jonathon set out to find David and tell him what king Saul was going to do. He allowed his grief to become compassion in action and he protected David from the injustice of his father. He didn’t try to have justice on his father, he just stood up and walked out on injustice and allowed compassion to help the one the injustice was upon.
God does not want us to hurt those who are hurting others. God wants us to help those who are being hurt.
And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “this is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’
Zechariah 7:8-10
God is just and will have justice, but through his Holy Spirit he gives us passion to have compassion wherever injustice is found. So let Your heart be broken for what breaks His, and your eyes be opened to what he Sees.
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