Ask protesters what they want, and you’ll receive a variety of answers. Accountability. An apology. Political and/or systemic change. Justice. Equality. One individual answered on national TV, “I’m just here for the loot.”

But what does God want? Like many of us, he grieves over injustice. How should believers respond? 

He has shown you… what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8

God directs us to do justice, to walk according to the law. But he also commands us to love mercy—ḥesed. God’s kind of never-ending, merciful, faithful, long-suffering, loving-kindness. The covenant love he shows to us, and we’re to show to him and one another. Ḥesed isn’t something we feel but something we do. 

But aren’t justice and mercy opposites? Shouldn’t the requirement be one or the other rather than both/and? Yet both are part of God’s nature. He cannot be one without being the other; he can’t be just without being merciful. How can we reconcile justice and ḥesed? Follow God’s lead. He has shown us what is good.

God’s justice is redemptive, seeking the restoration of relationships. He wants restored relationships with us and for us. His justice creates the potential for peace.

How can we practice that kind of justice? First, we must recognize our limited perspective. There’s always one more fact, always more to the story than we know. Then we must depend on God’s grace to empower our actions. Our pursuit of justice must begin in our relationship with God, who loves all people equally—both victims and victimizers. He desires justice for both.

God demands that we do justice with our hearts as well as our laws. An impossibility unless we walk with him in humility.