Called to Be At Peace Through Conviction

I grew up in the thick of segregation. And I will be honest with you. Back then, we did not talk much about cultural injustice. Not really. Sunday School, sermons, Wednesday night prayer meetings. They were full of Scripture, full of hope, full of heaven. But mostly silent when it came to the brokenness just down the street or across the tracks. 

We were told we were all God’s children. Same Father. Legitimate. And by that logic, equal. But what we saw with our eyes and felt in our skin did not match what we heard from the pulpit. Nor did it match our daily experience. 

And that tension stayed with me. I have wrestled with injustice for decades. Not only the facts of it but the feelings that rise with it. The feelings that sit heavy on the heart. The feelings that make you want others to understand what you have lived through. To feel the rage. To feel the grief. To feel the edge you have carried for so long that it settles in as your normal. It is a heavy normal. A normal that demands more energy than most people will ever understand. Most days you are simply in survival mode. A kind of PTSD of the soul. 

For years my view of it all, and of my own pain, was narrow. The more I ruminated, the more I despaired. 

Then last November, while traveling in Spain, I met a man. African American like me. A committed believer in Jesus. Our unplanned two hour conversation near the resort pool was more than coincidence. It was providence. God used that moment to shift my thinking. Not to erase the injustice, but to adjust the burden. To move me from bitterness toward clarity. To help me start seeing injustice through a kingdom lens. 

Here is what began to settle in my spirit. I wrote it down. “Loving and forgiving others does not mean I turn away from the brokenness around me. On the contrary, I must wrestle with it. I must grieve it.” 

But the burden of injustice belongs to God. The conviction to confront it belongs to me. And I must not align myself with it through silence or surrender. 

Let me explain. It is easy to look at injustice in the world, to look at the systems and the scars and the stories, and feel powerless. That is where I was. Carrying a weight that was not mine to carry. But that is not my calling. That burden rests with Jesus. He is the one who rights the wrongs. He is the one who redeems the pain. He carries the full weight of the world’s wounds. Not me. Not you. 

But here is what does belong to us and cannot be set down. Conviction. 

Conviction is what keeps us awake. It is the whisper of the Spirit that says, “This is not right and you know it.” It is the tug that will not let your heart grow numb. It is the burning reminder that says, “Do something. Say something. Care.” 

Because when we lose that conviction, we do not become neutral. We drift toward complicity. Not with evil intent. But through quiet indifference. Through a neglect that feels harmless at first yet grows into its own kind of wrong. 

Let us be honest. The enemy of justice is not always hatred. Sometimes it is comfort. Sometimes it is good people who stop noticing. Who stop feeling. Who stop showing up. Who settle into the ease of where they are. That is why conviction matters. Not to shame us but to sharpen us. Not to crush us but to wake us. Not to limit us but to grow us. 

God is not asking you or me to fix everything. But He is asking us not to sleep through it. To stay alert. To stay tender. To stay responsive. Let conviction lead you to compassion rather than bitterness. Because silence in the face of injustice is not peace. It is permission. 

And now I feel something new. Not crushed. Not bitter. Just clear. Less burdened. More convicted. And this is where I am finding freedom.