Worked the graveyard last night and got off at 7 this morning, slept for 2 hours, and then groggily woke up and went to church, looking forward to some time in the presence. I walk in the door, grab my coffee and see all my favorite faces, with my best friend Dan on stage leading the congregation into the presence, this is clearly gonna be a great service, which is great cause I could use the worship but didn't have the energy to handle anything out of the normal…..
Then I look to my left and my heartbeat goes through the roof…. standing there, arms int he air is one of my old friends who I used to love more than anything, having been great friends with him in college…. well, I mean until until he molested his gf at the time who happened to be my girlfriend's roommate…. That was kinda a game changer…
Instantly I had a flashback of being out at lunch with him and being casually told about the incident followed by laughter and a "but it's all good, I'm covered by the blood so all is forgiven!". I've never wanted to absolutely tear somebody's face off so badly in my life.
So much for a nice, normal, easy service. Hot tears ran down my face for the better half of the service as suddenly every bit of hurt and anger boiled up to the surface. God what do I even do right now?? It's been 3 years, and I can't help but notice that this is stirring up a much bigger issue than just him.
The bigger issue is this…. since signing up for the world race, I've had no issue with the idea of going to Thailand and loving on prostitues, in fact I've loved the idea of it. I've had no problem with hanging out with child soldiers in Africa, or drunks, or druggies, or the poor, or the broken…. But my number one question has been this: God, how on earth do I love the pimps? How do I love the men who sell women? How do I love the Konies who abduct children and turn them into child soldiers? How do I love the rapists? Cause more than anything I want to go machine gun preacher on them all and just end them…. If I'm being real it's actually a legit thought I've had in terms of how I would react if a guy ever offered to sell me a girl on this trip and what I would do to him…. I have too much of a justice heart to ever love this demographic of people and you can go all christianese on me and tell me that all sins are the same in the eyes of God but try telling the girl who was raped that it was equal with being lied to and see how well that goes over.
There's a lot of background and history with this. Over the years I seem to have had a great way of getting the girls that had been raped or abused and I've seen the damage it's done to them that I would then pay for because some other boy didn't know how to treat them like royalty. I remember going out on my 21st and drinking the drink meant for my friend that was rufied and then waking up on a fishing boat not being able to move and strangers telling me that they hoped I loved tuna fishing because it's what I would be doing for the rest of my life, and then waking up later to them laughing saying "I can't believe you just tea bagged the yank!!!" and being terrified because I couldn't remember anything and couldn't move, and then finally at 4 in the morning when I could finally control my body, having to sneak off the boat while they all slept and having to walk the 4 miles to my car on the other side of town. It makes me livid.
So here I am in church, bawling, angry, confused, and suddenly I get this image of the last episode from "The Bible" series on the history channel where, after being beaten and watching his friends get killed by Saul, Ananias is told by God to go find Saul and release healing on him because he was the one God had chosen to lead his people….. Saul…. the killer of christians…. was who God was gonna use to lead christians….Not Ananias, who was actually faithful and loved the Lord….And in the show you see Ananias go into Saul's house and stand over him with tears running down his face as he makes a deliberate effort to put his hand on Saul's face, release healing, and then speak destiny over him…. And then I got it…. This demographic of men may in no way be worthy of mercy, or love, or really anything short of contempt…. But God loves them…and He sees the purpose and destiny He made for them…. and that needs to be good enough for me…. This is the same God who redeemed Rahab the prostitute, called David the murdering adulterer a man after His own heart, chose Paul, and picked Jacob the liar to be the father of His chosen nation.
Anybody not involved can forgive the Boston bombers and say Jesus loves them…. It's another thing entirely to have lost a family member and then look them in the eye and say you love them and forgive them… That's real, that's raw. It's a destiny changer.
Long story short, when you support me financially to go on this trip, you're not just supporting another missionary teaching sports or english, you're sowing into someone with a destiny to call the greatness out of the pimps, genocidists, and then men involved in the sex trade, and to tell them "you're the one that God has chosen to lead His people". I refuse to be the one just trimming the weeds, if I'm doing this, I'll be going strait to the roots and cutting them there. Like the Pharisees said in the book of Acts: Those who have turned the whole world upside down are now coming here! I'm on my way.
Great theory Jed! Now let's put it to the test….ok fine, time to go talk to my friend. We embraced for prolly a solid minute, and I told him that I loved him and I was glad he'd moved here. Great first start, now the service is over and it's time for ministry, of course he decides to walk right up to me and ask for prayer over a cracked tooth… Cool God, I forgave him and now I get the opportunity to bless him too….You weren't kidding with that Ananias thing!!! We pray and he walks into the bathroom to check his tooth in the mirror and comes back excitedly telling me that he has a whole tooth again and shows me where the crack was and how it's not there anymore. Not a bad day God…..Not a bad day….
Now let's go rock the world.
