Human trafficking is painful to look at. Why would I want to?

To my non-Christian friends and readers: Not For Sale Campaign is not a Christian organization, but I am a Christian person. Sometimes that will be apparent in my personal ramblings. Like this one.

I've been thinking about my closest relationships. How I love to share day-to-day moments with my dear ones, washing dishes together, sharing meals and conversation and laughing at goofy movies. How wonderful it is to share their moments of triumph and celebration!  But what a fair-weather friend I would be if I skipped out when the going got tough. When the tears flow and the hard times come, my relationship deepens with those I love, as I walk through those times too, feeling their pain to the core of my being and shedding my own tears. Relationships require walking through good times and hard times together.

And so, I find, it is with my relationship with God. I love seeing him in the beauty and intricacy of his creation. There is joy in watching the transformation of His people (including my own) , experiencing his daily mercy, being lost in the wonder and worship of who He is. There is, in just being with Him, joy beyond words.

But, as with any relationship, I cannot truly know God without entering into his pain. And what unimaginable pain He bears! Every time a child is held down on a bed and raped, He is there. Every time a woman is beaten into submission, He weeps. He feels the lashes on the back of the labor slave for some imagined infraction of a slave master's will. Wherever cruelty, suffering and injustice are found, God is found. Knowing the rage and heartache I feel when I learn about some of the situations of human trafficking victims, I cannot comprehend the suffering of God as He enters into the vilest situations on earth, every single one of them without rest, 24/7. I cannot fully know God without knowing, at least in part, His anger and pain over weak, vulnerable people exploited, used like commodities and forced to do things against their wills.

I find, as I enter into the horrors of free will bent towards cruelty, greed, selfishness and domination that I am also coming to know and love God more deeply. To appreciate the rightness of His ways designed for our own best interests. To love this omniscient one who agonizes over each injustice to a person lovingly formed by His own hands. As I taste some of his righteous anger at those who would take advantage of the weak and powerless.

And I hear His voice, filled with grief, telling me that He has a plan for justice. That just as traffickers have free will to carry out their cruelties, I have free will to work against them, to bring about God's desires for his creation.  That His plan for justice includes ME.

I cannot reverse the tide of evil in the world. I cannot right the injustice that floods the earth. But I can, by God's grace, faithfully carry out my little piece of His plan and share my little bit of His love in action. And, as I do, in the midst of days when I am sometimes emotionally spent and physically drained, I find myself knowing God more intimately than I could in any other way, and that, my friends, is heaven on earth.

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As you choose to enter into a world of suffering and are stretched beyond your comfort zone, what are you experiencing?

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