“For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the starts there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-to-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the starts but who in one way or another is trying to get messages through our blindness as we move around here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but, whether we use religious language for it or not, the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle that we are really after. And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.”
-Frederick Buechner
Our God is one who communicates. Who is constantly speaking to our hearts whether through the extravagant and extraordinary, or the simple and mundane. And not only does He send messages to us directly, I believe He also uses us to be messages to one another. That, as children of God, we are living, breathing manifestations of His Kingdom on the earth, bearing His nature and reflecting His heart. We have what the world is craving and hungering for, if only we would choose to act and give ourselves.
Allow me to illustrate.
In the film “Les Miserables”, the character Fantine, played by Anne Hathaway, is a single mother desperate to provide for her child. She loves her daughter so much she resorts to selling her hair, her teeth, and inevitably her body to make whatever money she can. Her life is miserable. Her depravity has overtaken her identity. Her hopes of a better life have been brutally and horribly crushed. After being with a customer, she sings a song of how her life has become so much different than she ever expected.
“I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I’m living. So different now that what it seemed. Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.”
I think Fantine represents so many people in the world. Those who have been dealt a cruel hand and find themselves in situations they are not able to escape. People enslaved, abused, broken, and downtrodden. Their crying out from the depths of their souls for someone to rescue them. For someone to bring the freedom and redemption they’ve been so desperately hoping for.
And for Fantine, her hope is restored.
Jean Valjean, played by Hugh Jackman, intervenes for Fantine as she was about to be unjustly arrested, which would have secured a terrible fate for her daughter. Thankfully, he steps on the scene and rescues Fantine, taking her to a hospital where she ultimately dies. But before she does, he promises to take care of her daughter, allowing Fantine to die in peace – a peace she has never known.
As Kingdom people, I believe we are called to be the messengers of hope to the hopeless, and love to the unloved. We have opportunities to be like Jean Valjean – willing to intervene for the outcast and oppressed, giving them the value and dignity they deserve as human beings.
I have an opportunity to bring that freedom and love to those dying to receive it. And I need your help! Will you partner with me as the Lord sends me out to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free? There are people like Fantine hoping for someone to come and intercede for them on their behalf and rescue them from their oppression and hardship.
