Early Bird

10-year-old Mark is excited – his birthday is Saturday and it’s Thursday afternoon.  Mark is excited because his dad promised that for this birthday, he would build Mark a little miniature workbench.  Mark loves to stand and watch his dad work with wood out in the garage, building bookshelves and fixing chairs and tables.  For months, Mark has been asking his dad for a little miniature workbench of his own where he can fix his own chair and fashion his own masterpieces.  And now the time has almost come!

Mark is just too eager, though.  Instead of waiting for his dad to build him a sturdy little workbench on Saturday morning, he opens up his dad’s toolbox and begins hammering pieces of wood together on Thursday afternoon.  His dad is still at work, and without his dad’s knowledge of or skill at wood working Mark doesn’t have much success.  Instead of a miniature workbench, he just ends up with a bunch of bent nails and a couple crooked 2×4′s.

Sometimes I wonder how much our generation’s pursuit of justice mirrors Mark’s attempt to build a workbench.  I don’t mean to say we shouldn’t pursue justice, or that God intends that we sit around and wait for his Son’s second coming.  I just wonder what our expectations should be – of our own attempts at societal justice – while we wait for our Lord to return and dispense perfect justice.

I’m not saying do nothing; I’m not saying do everything.  I just wonder what God expects of us in this age, and, thus, what we ought to expect of ourselves.