I see children smile, laugh, play. Little girls in skirts and tank tops grin as they run along dirty streets. Dancing, singing. They grab our hands and ask us to carry them. Little boys ask greedily for hi-fives. Every single hi-five is a boon to his very being. I hear a loosely understood word, “Pitcha pitcha.”
They want a picture.
It is then I realize how similar they really are.
Everybody wants to be known. To be remembered. To be part of something greater than themselves. Whether its cheering amidst thousands of raving fans at a Cowboys game or sharing a multitude of colored pixels together on a dimlit monitor.
We all want to be somewhere. Belong somewhere. Be part of something.
It’s so incredible that even 12,000 miles away from home, humanity is the same. Our ability to transcend culture, location, the time we were born fills me with wonder. If children are the same here, then they were probably the same two millennia ago, when Jesus laughed and ran and played.
Walking a long the road, I spy pets. Dogs. Birds. Cats. Teenagers flirting with each other. Older men drinking and smoking.
The world I see here in sweltering heat and hand-crafted tin shanties is so different, yet so much of it overlaps. We still love the feelings that numb our emotions and romance that brings us hope and pets. Even pets.
Our very humanity unites us.
I cannot look at a small grinning child that finds joy in games and flowers, pools, and food, and say she is really that different from me. I was the same way after all.
A small child, loving life.
As I walk around I see more and more people, hundreds of them, living in shacks. Tin walls caked with mud, dirt floors, broken engines and vehicles. Houses literally constructed from the remnants of old lives.
Small brown eyes look back. Old men groan and carry objects to work. I can’t help but notice the contrast.
The camera on my neck is expensive.
The other day I heard a story of a father selling his twelve year-old daughter into prostitution here for 225 USD.
That can’t even buy my camera.
An entire life, radically abused and suffocated for less money than something hanging around my neck. A little girl prostituted so a father can enjoy beer and life. Sometimes they are sold so a family can survive.
Some people are never known.
It is all somewhat daunting. To know that I am so richly blessed in America. Even now my mind wrestles with the concept of poverty. It immediately jumps to “If they had what I had, they would be more blessed.”
Yet are things… treasures… materials… really a source of happiness?
Really they are just down payments for rust and moths.
Could money have prevented that? Could a good man have prevented that? Could that little girl have been rescued? It’s easy to be so cynical in this generation of free Wi-Fi and easy living. It’s so easy to condemn a man who sells his daughter as a bastardization of humanity. An abomination. Justice boils up when I think about it. Yet how many of us would even now sell the very T.V. in our living room to rescue little girls? It’s easy to condemn that man too for enjoying the blessings God has handed him. Yet is there anything wrong in that either?
The ambivalence of seeing our great wealth and poverty challenges everything I know. How desperate are we to see change and hope and this life overwhelmed by the kingdom of Christ?
It is here I am confronted with the reality that evil is also a part of our humanity. A sickening marred image of the all-loving God. Something in us seems so destined for greatness. Beyond palm trees and parakeets and boa constrictors. All of creation seems to exist and even thrive, yet it seems incapable of expression, creation, love. Even the most basic tenets of crying out, exhaust the dog and the animal. They cannot express like we can. They cannot make buildings and Ipods. Something is so different about us. Our very image is different. Yet we still seem marred. Broken. Distraught.
The gospel becomes so clear here.
Who wouldn’t want to know they could be whole? That they could escape from the confines of falling time and again, shackled to evil desire? It is on these city streets that are filled with trash and sweat I am brought to understand this. The gospel is beyond things. It is greater than cameras and money. It transcends living situation, physical health, rational emotions, bad days, bad lives, and hard moments.
It is the story of a father who sold everything to buy us out of slavery. A son who gave his very live to purchase us from hells traffickers. Transactions in blood and wounds for a sinners wager.
Instead of placing all the value on what the father got in exchange for his son, the gospel hinges upon the son being so valuable we shudder and frown and get confused wondering at what God really got through that. We are moved to awe at the audacity of God.
He gave the most valuable of all, Jesus, for a humanity that seems the fool’s gold of trades.
A couple messed up human beings and a dirty bride?
Yet, God is no fool.
How often have I felt when I looked in the mirror that I not even worth the camera on my neck? 225$? Felt that I am rubbish meant to be burned and thrown away. Only to be ignoring the great value God saw in rescuing us.
We are worth so much more then we realize. We are so loved by God. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that until you see the transaction of the cross. He gave everything just to know us deeper and more intimately.
When everyone wants to be known, our creator knew us. Saved us. Sometimes I forget how much He wants to be known. Remembered. For us to understand salvation wasn’t easy, it wasn’t small, it wasn’t forgettable. It’s something we need to dwell on, reflect on, live in.
Maybe you haven’t talked to God in awhile. I mean really talked. Tears covering your face, sitting in the corner, hearing Him speak love over you talk. Maybe you see injustice in the world but have turned a blind eye. Maybe you are wondering why Jesus died for you.
Today go find sometime alone with Jesus and thank Him. Grin and look in the mirror knowing that God gave His very life to buy you. Pray about making a tangible difference in this world, even if it means rescuing just one little one, fight for knowing God. Don’t give up. Thank Him for His everlasting God.
Fight to know Him.
He fought to know you.
