I just watched a documentary
on sex trafficking. I know that we all
know the issues on sex trafficking and some have probably gotten sick of the
subject being a topic of conversation so often.
Trust me, I know how you feel because this is what I thought when I sat
down with most of my team tonight to watch a documentary called Nefarious.
I’ve never really cried
while watching a movie before but tonight seemed different. I was welling up with tears almost at the
very beginning of the documentary and those tears were constantly there
throughout the 2 hour movie. But these
tears weren’t for myself or even as a form of sadness for the situation, but
for the girls on the screen that felt worthless in this world. I don’t like seeing people that worthless and
hopeless and full of despair but that was the similarity in every story that
was shared. It makes me want to share
with the people around me, “We have value and that God loves you.” I wish I could add, “and how much Christians love
them.” Sadly this isn’t the case because
most of us pretend that the people on the streets don’t exist. I know because I’m guilty of this in my
everyday life. If I’m doing ministry
with the homeless and the prostitutes in downtown Vancouver then I treat them
like any other person. When I’m not “on
duty” to serve God, however, I often ignore these people completely.
Who am I to say that I
can choose when to love others? That I can
pick and choose the most convenient time to serve God? Because Christ died on the cross for all
people, not just Christians or the victims in situations like
prostitution. He died for those corrupt
people too. Even those people so
involved in sin and evil. Christ dies
for them just as much as he died for me.
Therefore, we are called to love ALL, not just those that are easy to
love but ALL people.
In reality, we have zero ability to truly love anyone
without God living in us and moving through us.
He is the very definition of love.
Not only is He love himself, but he gave us as human beings the perfect
example of what love looks like here on earth thought the example of
Jesus. I believe that it is only through
God living in us that we can love those involved in the sex trafficking
industry. This doesn’t mean that we only
love the prostitutes, those who we can easily give our sympathies to, but the
pimps and the Johns as well. And beyond
that, we cannot love those in government held positions that have the ability
to stop this human trafficking but choose to turn a blind eye. It’s only with the power of God’s love in us
that we can love the parents that sell their own daughters into prostitution to
make some extra cash for a nicer television or cell phone. It’s only with God’s love in us that we can
love those that have sexually abused these girls when they were younger. Without God’s love in us, we will never be
able to love any of these people.
I don’t pretend that I’m any closer then you at loving
any of these people to that capacity. It’s
so easy to build up hatred for those that are involved in the human trafficking
industry. Hatred and bitterness go
hand-in-hand and the Bible is constantly commanding us to stay away from bitterness. We cannot hate the corrupt but we can hate
the corruption. There is a big
distinction between the two. This is
something that I need to remember for myself.
I need to separate the people that Christ died for and loves abundantly
with the sin that they are involved in.
I think instead of hating those people we need to replace it with how
God feels for them. I can imagine God
takes on a pain that we cannot fathom for those people because of his great
love for them.
