You know. The animal that buries it's head in the sand and knows it has seen something and yet does nothing? Actually, let's be honest, it does more than nothing - it actively looks away and takes the effort needed to try and ignore whatever was seen.
Yeah. That's been me.
The Lord has been drawing me out of this for a while now, but for years I have either just barely held my head above the sand before yanking it back down, or have told others (including myself) that my head is above ground while still being very much buried.
William Wilberforce, an English abolitionist and lover of Jesus, once said "you may chose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know". I heard this quote from a dear friend a few months back and I can't shake it. I want to, my inner ostrich wants to so badly, but I just can't. Wilberforce spent his life making sure that he did not ignore the suffering around him, even when he could have easily turned away. He spoke up for those who were being silenced and raised his voice against oppression and injustice even when those around him hated him all the more for it.
I can't help but wonder - what is different between myself and Wilberforce? If I am to believe the Gospel, which I do, it means that both he and I have the same redemption bought on the cross of Christ, the same indwelling of the Holy Spirit and same Heavenly Father who knows the very hairs on our head. And yet, I sit here so willing to blog about injustices and pain and so unwilling to push aside the false sense of comfort and security to actually stand with the hurting, to fight for the broken, to love the unloved.
I joined Noonday almost a year ago with the desire to do something about the injustices around the world, to fight alongside the mama who couldn't put food on her child's plate and to encourage the domestic violence surviver to continue her work even when it felt like it wasn't making any difference. I loved Noonday, and still do. But God called me away from it in January of this year and for some reason, didn't tell me exactly why.
I wish that I could write that now I know what that why is, but I cannot. I do know that He is asking me to actually wake up though. I've been living in such a dream-like Christianity for far too long. I've been comfortable with pain at a distance, hunger across the street, and sexual exploitation a click away. But, praise the Lord, He is slowly ripping the "ok-ness" from my naive heart. It's so easy to journal that out, but I know myself - without a public affirmation I am so much more likely to slip back into my normal life, my head hiding and my ear plugging way of living that I've grown so accustomed to.
I read the short book Risk is Right by John Piper over the weekend. After reading more than half of the book Girls Like Us by Rachel Lloyd over the second half of last week, I was feeling cut open. I couldn't put it down, but at the same time was loosing hope page by page and line by line. I was forgetting so quickly that I serve the God of Justice, and the Lord of Redemption and Life. Andrew pointed this out to me, and I consumed the Piper book in one sitting, pouring over the words that were so providential and so needed.
Piper reminded me through the short book that as a woman who loves Jesus, it's not about me staying comfy. In fact, my comfy Christian life is nothing but a waste. Risking comfort, "security" and even life itself for the sake of the Gospel and loving those around me with no limits is where I will meet the will of God. I don't mean to say that I am not saved here in my comfy Christianity, but that my sitting here is not what Jesus meant when he said "go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20).
This question that was posed in the second half of the book hit me harder than I expected it to:
"And now what about you? Are you caught in the enchantment of security,
paralyzed from taking any risks for the cause of God? Or have you been
freed by the power of the Holy Spirit from the mirage of Egyptian slavery
and comfort?... do you women ever say with Esther, 'For the sake of Christ,
I'll try it! and if I perish, I perish'?"
Can I be honest with you? That question scares me. It did Saturday night, and it does this afternoon. Scares me to think about the "what if's". The "how would's" and then the "and then's". But I do not believe for a second that the Lord is doing something in my heart merely to stop when I become afraid. In fact, I believe the exact opposite. I fully expect Him to change my heart until I see him face to face, and even if the change and molding is painful and uncomfortable, I know it will be for his glory and my good.
Walk with me? Please, please read Girls Like Us. It's painful and sickening and one of the hardest books I have ever read. But it is so needed. Needed for my ostrich heart to be jolted from this near comatose state of living and be willing to throw my comfort down and say "if I perish I perish, but I have to walk forward". I don't know what the Lord will do through that book in each of your hearts and lives, and I know that not everyone will be called to change their lives radically or move to India to walk with women or girls rescued from the sex industry. But some of us/you might. I don't know that the Lord will spark in your heart a desire to foster children so that the stream of runaways and sweet children abused and cast aside by society are instead loved well and deeply and pimps have less of a chance to lure hurting girls into the life. But some of us/you might be called to that.
Pray with me? That the Lord would completely break our hearts for what breaks his. That he would fill us anew with his love and passion and strength and that we would do whatever he asks of us. No matter the risk. No matter the cost.
I can't live like this anymore. You?
