2 Chronicles 21:11-17. Elijah the prophet writes a letter to Jehoram, the king of Judah. Jehoram has been leading the people astray and Edom and Libnah have revolted against his rule. He also has "made high places in the hill country of Judah, and led the inhabitants of Judah into unfaithfulness." God sends his Word to Jehoram through Elijah's letter and says that because Jehoram has not walked in the ways of God and of his father, Jehoshaphat, but instead has walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and has led the inhabitants of Jerusalem into unfaithfulness, and because he has killed his brothers who were better than him, "behold, the Lord will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your wives, and all your possessions, and you yourself will have a severe sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels come out because of the disease day by day."

Jehoram was a really awful king; he did truly terrible things, such as killing his own brothers. He was very deserving of divine punishment, and Elijah's letter tells him that God sees what he has done and is doing, and God will punish him. But think about everything he got away with before and even after this letter! The letter did not give him the bowel disease, although he did eventually die of such a disease two years later, after God stirred up the Philistines and the Arabs to invade Judah and steal away all of Jehoram's people and possessions.

Jehoram had eight years of his reign to accomplish great evil, and for the people to suffer under his reign and be led astray by him. God eventually did visit justice on him, but not immediately - not right after he killed his brothers, or even one of his brothers; not after any one of the other many many evil acts he had done. No, God did not hurl thunderbolts from Heaven at Jehoram's every misdeed, instead, in His time, He had Elijah send a letter a promising justice. But still Jehoram could have easily ignored Elijah's letter and continued on his evil path, in fact, he probably did!

I am thinking about all of this because I see such great Injustice and, frankly, evil in the world today and a lot of it is coming from our leaders. People are suffering greatly as our leaders pursue their misguided and often evil priorities. It really is having life and death consequences in the world, and yet it seems that God is doing nothing. Justice does not appear forthcoming. I know several people who are looking for a very clear "divine intervention" in many matters, such as in the Ukraine and against Russia, or against abortion supporting politicians, yet the evildoers seem to act with impunity.

We have to remember, as this passage reminds us, that God works in His own way. He is slow to anger, but He sees what is happening. He may be allowing time for repentance (even of Putin and the abortion supporters, they are entitled to His Mercy as well!), He may be accomplishing other things through the suffering of the people, or He even may have delivered letters promising justice to many of our leaders, we just don't know! But we do know that He loves us and all His creation and that He is just and righteous. True justice will prevail in the end, in His time, and in His way of meting it out.