It’s really easy to look at someone else and point out their mistakes, shortcomings, and create drama about the choices they are making. It is easy to judge. Assume. To say you understand what it is like to walk in their shoes. To say it is all their fault. To point fingers. It is easy to claim these things like we know it all with, perhaps, never actually having that knowledge to begin with.
It is more difficult to look at someone and see them exactly the way Jesus sees them. Captives worthy of His love.
Loving them no matter the circumstance.
Loving them no matter their story.
Loving them in the midst of the mess.
“It’s normal for us to take a piece of our experience and apply it to the whole. It doesn’t mean it’s correct; I know that now.”
To LOVE at all is to be vulnerable. Willing. Brave.
God calls us to be vulnerable with others. That vulnerability inevitably will push us into uncomfortable situations. Maybe even situations that are so unexplainable you have zero words. This is how I have felt for the last 4 weeks.
Struggling to put into words what I have experienced, seen, and heard. Attempting to write a blog with only a blank page blaring back at me. The type of realization that leaves you wrestling on a rooftop and crying out to God in Nepal. There are no words that can explain the wave of emotions that flood my thoughts. The reality of what it is like to sit across a table in a closed off cubby at a cabin restaurant where girls are forced to sell their bodies. To sit at these places that are disguised as restaurants when they are actually where men go to pay prostitutes for services. I sat knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus called me there to love these girls in the mess. To let them know their worth and how beautiful they are. How loved they are by a God that loves them unconditionally.
The weight of the darkness that exists due to sex slavery is undefinable. It is a feeling of complete brokenness…
My heart is burdened. The girl that sat in the cabin before us was now 23 – This is the age she had guessed she was. She shared she does not celebrate a birthday …EVER. She told us that she had been abducted at age 7, taken by van from her small village that resides somewhere at the base of Mount Everest. She does not know her family.
She does not know any other life than this. This fact alone shattered my soul as I sat across the table from her. Since she was trafficked, she has been moved 3 different times and has worked where she currently is for 9 years.
As I sat at an open table questioning, “Why God?” this verse flooded my mind:
‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows..‘ -Luke 12:6-7
God reminded me that He is aware and He has called me to stand up for Christ no matter the location.
To not be afraid. To love on these women by sharing Jesus’s love. To share how valuable they are. They are worth far more than many sparrows.
“As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” –John 13:34-3
REALLY loving others will cause us to walk into the mess despite us. To die to ourselves and our selfishness. To start seeing others as more valuable than how they perform, what they achieve, and how they look. To lay down fears and walk into the darkest of places where you can literally feel the weight of depravity. To stop pretending God is stuck in a church building and start taking His story of redemption to the places that hunger for it. To start living with an open heart and an open table toward people who are lost.
To LOVE like Jesus.
Jesus welcomed and was open to share a table with the prostitutes, tax-collectors, drunkards, and the lowly. Jesus met people where they were and He LOVED them. Jesus lived this way and spent His time this way. He was not afraid – He was vulnerable and brave. This is what Jesus designed the community of ‘Church’ for. To be an OPEN TABLE.
Mark 9:10-13 reads:
‘And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus was ready and OPEN to any and all people.
He stood up for the lost, expressed His light, and extended His love.
So what does this look like across borders?
To enter the unknown and be ready for all circumstances.
To accept and love others and to display the love of Christ.
To serve those Jesus would serve.
Jesus invited me to an open table in Nepal. He did this twice in Kathmandu. He readjusted my eyes to see modern day slavery by placing me in places among prostitutes in order to spread His love. To Rescue. Redeem. Restore.
She is valuable, She is worthy, She is beloved.
The experience of sitting at an open table amongst complete darkness made me realize that I no longer operate in fear but in faith.
“Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” -John 15:12-13
There is work to be done.
Jesus has called me to Open Tables.
