Time of Reckoning

“Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, ​hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.” Isaiah 1:16-17

I feel that now is a time of reckoning. I have a heavy spirit, and feel like someone has died. Indeed, something has. Something evil has risen in its place, and it is leering at us in seeming victory. When Congress voted to deny ABS CBN’s continued franchise, those 70 plus Congressmen were saying to us that the rule of law was unimportant. What was more supreme was what their majority party wanted. The SAGIP party-list lawmaker actually claimed that the testimonies of the Bureau of Immigration, Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor, and other government agencies weighed little as it is Congress alone that grants franchises. “It is the will of Congress that should be accorded due respect simply because it is Congress that has the sole and ultimate authority to grant or deny application of franchises,” Congressman Rodante Marcoleta said. Are not the Congressmen elected to be representatives of the people? 

Before I go on my high horse, feel righteous, and condemn them all to hell, I need to stop and see myself with the same mirror. God has put us in our place for a purpose and a reason. He has given us gifts, our intrinsic value, our whole life, and He has asked us to represent Him here on earth. Have we used our gifts and resources for His glory, or have we used them to enrich ourselves, to lord it over others, to railroad our agenda over the good of others? We are His ambassadors here on earth, His hands and feet, His voice. Do we make justice our aim? Do we correct the wrong we see as much as we are able? Do we hear and see the orphans and widows crying in our midst and do we do something about it? In Matthew 7:3, Jesus says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” And before that, He warns, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”