Prayers for justice

When it has just happened

The decision came through, or you found out what was said about you, and you have not told anyone yet. These are for the first hour, before you have worked out what to do. If your body is still not settling after a few days of this, that is worth telling a doctor.

• This is not right

  God, this is not right. I am saying it plainly because you already know it. I have no plan and no words after this. I am putting it in front of you before I do anything I cannot take back.

• Before I say anything

  Hold my tongue for an hour, God. That is all I am asking for tonight.

• For steady hands tomorrow

  Tomorrow I have to go back in and be normal. Steady my hands, Lord. Let me eat something. Keep me from making this worse while I work out what is true and what to do about it.

• When I cannot stop shaking

  My body has decided this is an emergency and it will not stand down. Sit with me until it passes. I do not need an answer yet. I need to be able to breathe.

When nothing is being done

For the complaint that has been open eleven weeks, the panel that has not met, the person who was moved sideways instead of stopped. This is the grind, and it is its own kind of hard.

• For a complaint going nowhere

  I have asked properly, in writing, in the right order, to the right people, and nothing has moved. How long, God. You do not forget the cry of the afflicted. I am afflicted and I am crying out. Do not forget.

• The file nobody has opened

  God, someone has my letter in a pile. Move them. Or move me. Something.

• Strength for another appeal

  I have to write it all out again, Lord, and I am tired of my own story. Give me enough to do it once more, clearly, without begging. And if it comes back no again, be there before I read it.

• For the people deciding

  There are people whose job this is, and today it is one item on a long list. Wake them up to it, God. Let one of them read it properly. Give that person the nerve to say what they can plainly see.

When you are angry about it

Anger is not a failure of faith. The prophets were furious in public and it was counted as prayer. These are for saying the thing out loud rather than carrying it around all week.

• Saying it without tidying it

  I want them to lose what I lost. There. I have said it to you instead of doing it. I am not asking you to agree with me. I am asking you to take it, because I have carried it all day and it is making me somebody I do not like.

• Anger that will not go down

  This has been in my chest for months and I cannot pray it away. I am not going to pretend it is gone. Keep me from using it on the wrong people, Lord. Keep it pointed at the thing that is actually wrong.

• When I am angry with you

  God, you could have stopped this. I am not able to say anything kinder tonight. I am still here, still talking to you, and that will have to be the prayer.

When people say let it go

For the pressure to forgive quickly, to be gracious, to not make a fuss, especially when it comes from church. You are allowed to take as long as this actually takes.

• Not ready to forgive yet

  They want this finished and I am nowhere near. I will not say words I do not mean, God, not to you. Hold the door open. When something in me changes, you will be the first to know. Until then, this is where I am.

• For the ones who advised silence

  I do not know yet what the people who told me to drop it were protecting. Show me, when I can bear to look. I am not able to excuse them today and I will not pretend otherwise. Deal with them yourself, Lord, and keep me from becoming one of them.

• Peace is not the same as quiet

  God, I have been told to keep the peace. What they mean is keep quiet. Show me the difference, and give me the nerve to hold it when it costs me the room.

When it is someone else

For the person you cannot fix it for, and for the times you have to speak because they cannot. Also for working out what is yours to carry and what is not.

• For someone I cannot help

  I watched this happen to them, God, and I could not stop it. Be nearer to them tonight than I can get. Give them one person who believes them straight away, without making them prove it first.

• Before I speak up for them

  Lord, I am about to say something in a room where it will not be welcome. Keep me accurate. Keep me from performing. If it costs me, let it cost me and not them.

• When I would rather walk on

  I saw it and I kept walking. I had reasons and the reasons were good, and I still kept walking. Do not let me get used to that. Turn me round next time, before I have finished explaining myself.

• Where my part ends

  This is not mine to fix, and I have been trying to fix it anyway. Show me where my part ends, Lord. Let me put the rest down without calling it abandonment. I want to still be there tomorrow, and I will not be if I carry all of it.

Bible verses about justice and oppression

What each passage meant where it was written, and what it does and does not offer you now.

• But you do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the fatherless.

  Psalm 10:12–18

  This comes at the end of a psalm about people who get away with things. The prayer does not soften the complaint before offering it. It tells God to get up, to lift his hand, and not to forget, and only then says that God has already seen. If your praying is mostly accusation and demand at the moment, this is the shape it takes in the book. You are not doing it wrong.

• For he who avenges blood remembers them. He doesn’t forget the cry of the afflicted.

  Psalm 9:7–12

  The line people usually reach for here is the high tower, the safe place. Keep reading and the psalm is blunter than that. It says the cry itself is remembered, which is a different promise from rescue by Friday. What is offered is that the record is kept, that nothing you have suffered has been mislaid. It does not say when.

• Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who write oppressive decrees

  Isaiah 10:1–4

  Read who is being addressed. Not thugs, but legislators and clerks, the people who write things down. The complaint is about oppression that is entirely lawful, correctly filed, done by the book. If you are being told that nothing wrong has occurred because the proper procedure was followed, this is the passage that already knows about that, and is angry about it.

• But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

  Amos 5:21–24

  This gets quoted on posters without the three verses in front of it, where God says he hates the festivals, will not accept the offerings, and wants the music switched off. It is aimed at people whose worship is running smoothly while their neighbours are being crushed. It is not a word to the crushed, and it should never be read to them as one.

Where these verses get misused

Verses about justice get turned around and used on the very people they were written for. Micah's humility becomes an instruction to stop making trouble. The blessing on peacemakers becomes keep the peace, which means keep quiet. Amos, aimed at comfortable worshippers, gets read out to the person being crushed. The new heaven and new earth gets used to say your case can wait. None of that is in the text. Nobody gets to demand that you forgive on their timetable, and nobody gets to call your complaint a lack of faith.

Questions people ask

Is it wrong to pray that someone gets what they deserve?

No, and the Psalms do it in plain language, including asking God to break the arm of the wicked. Naming what you want in God's hearing is safer than carrying it silently or acting on it. What those prayers never do is hand you the job. You are asking someone else to settle it. Over time that usually changes what you are asking for, though not quickly, and not on demand.

Do I have to forgive before God will listen to me?

No. Being unfinished with what happened is not a bar to praying. There are passages that tie praying and forgiving closely together, and Christians take them seriously. What they ask for is willingness, and willingness is not the same as having arrived. Forgiveness in the Bible is real and it is also slow, and it is not the same as pretending, staying in danger, or dropping a legitimate case. If someone has told you God cannot hear you until you let it go, that is their pressure, not God's requirement. Pray as the person you actually are today.

Does praying about this mean I should not take it further?

No. Praying and acting are not alternatives. Keep the solicitor, the union rep, the grievance process, the police, the advocate. Scripture keeps telling people to open their mouths and to seek justice, which is action rather than sentiment. Prayer is where you say the true version, including the parts you cannot put in a formal statement, and where you ask for the nerve and the stamina the process is going to need.

What if nothing changes, however long I pray?

Then you are in the company of most of the people in the book. Some prayers in Scripture are answered inside a chapter and some are still open at the end. We will not tell you it will come right, because we do not know. What we can say is that the tradition treats an unresolved complaint as prayer, not as failed prayer, and keeps it in the text where everyone can read it.