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The other day my wife Suzy and I had some friends over for dinner. Up until the last couple of months we’ve been helping this couple form a spiritual community in their home in one of Staten Islands tougher neighborhoods. Their incubating spiritual family was torn apart by the marriage problems, psychological issues, and interpersonal conflict of the people gathered. They had to go through the excruciating process of coming so close to true community, all to watch it all fall apart in the worst way. Not long after the death of their group, the couple suffered a blow of their own. They had been struggling to make ends meet (not an easy as a family of four on one income in NYC), and had an unexpected pregnancy with possible complications. On top of this all, some wierd events led to the foreclosure of their home. They were having dinner with us because they were looking at apartments in our area, which is more affordable than Staten Island. After apartment hunting, dinner, and a game of dominoes, we all prayed before the couple headed to their soon-not-to-be-home. The husband in the couple was praying — he has really been stuggling with the trauma and weight of all that’s been happening — and he said something that blew me away. He said, “Father, we know you are a just God.” If you knew this man’s story, you would question why he chose to say that particular thing. Abandoned by his mother, he was raised by his father and step-mother, but as a second-class member of the family. He was kicked out of the house at fourteen and spent several years homeless — living in other people’s living rooms or on the street. He got into the drug scene and descended into his own personal hell. After his marriage, he almost lost his son to a dangerous disease soon after he was born. A venegeful boss pulled him into a legal battle that cost him months of pay and almost ruined his life and his family. And this man still believes that God is just. Amazing. We so want Jesus to be about making our lives happy, comfortable dreams. But he suffered, and despite our protests, he shows us that faith will be willing to take that road. No doubt my friend has discovered transcendence on his path behind Jesus — the ability, despite all the evidence, to look beyond. And that, to both him and me, is worth a great deal because it is more real and more solid. To chose to say, in the face of injustice, “God is just” is to join Jesus in knowing God in a different way. It is the Kingdom come.
Original content by: http://blog.thetruthtree.com/?p=8.
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Scott Bartchy is a radical. He believes in a subversive system that embraces those on the fringes of our society and seeks to establish a new way of life that goes against the status quo.