January is National Human Trafficking Awareness month. It’s been a decade since I first learned of its existence (more on that story here). During that time, the one aspect of human trafficking many people find most difficult to believe is that it often happens close to home. By that I mean that it happens in local communities all across the United States and that many victims experience trafficking in their own homes, not primarily as a result of kidnapping.
Human trafficking is a $150 billion dollar industry with an estimated 40 million people trapped in its systems (https://www.ijm.org/slavery). From a financial perspective, trafficking humans is preferable to drugs or other commodities because you can traffic a person over and over and over again. It is also easier to hide human trafficking because it happens behind closed doors and victims are often either too afraid to ask for help or not believed when they do.
The key to understanding human trafficking and to fight it is to realize that trafficking’s root cause is vulnerability. Human traffickers target individuals whom they can exploit, manipulate and control. The easiest people to target then are those who are often overlooked such as refugees, the homeless, individuals with substance use issues or mental health concerns, runaways, or those connected to the foster care system.
When people learn the truth of human trafficking, their response is often, “What can I do to help?” My answer is always to start small and do what you can. Below are a few simple suggestions to fight human trafficking, and most of them can be done from the comfort of your own home.
Learn the facts
The first place to begin is always to educate yourself on what is true about human trafficking and what is a myth. Though posts suggesting traffickers are looking for victims at your local shopping complex are popular on social media, those posts are meant to be sensational more than truthful. It is better to learn the truth of human trafficking from sites like the Human Trafficking Hotline or A21.
See something, say something
Once you have an understanding of the signs of trafficking, you may begin to see red flags as you go about your daily life. I recommend putting the National Human Trafficking Hotline number in your phone to call anytime you see something suspicious (1-888-373-7888). The best course of action is always “if you see something, say something.”
Become a support person
Though visions of kicking in doors and rescuing people chained to metal bed frames may sell movies, it’s the people serving vulnerable populations who are the true heroes. It may not feel exciting to volunteer at a homeless shelter, become a mentor for an after school program, or parent a foster child. But these are three of many ways you can be a stable support for a vulnerable person which leads to a lesser chance of them falling prey to the wiles of a human trafficker.
Shop with intention
You can also learn which industries are most likely to use slave labor and alter your purchasing habits to limit the likelihood of using products made by slaves. SlaveryFootprint.org is a great resource for learning more about labor trafficking and what you can do to stop supporting slave labor through your purchasing. End Slavery Now has a free buying guide that is a great tool to use as well as other good information and resources. Dozens of online stores like Made Free and Trades of Hope provide products to support anti-trafficking efforts and even provide income for those who have been freed from a life of slavery.
Support anti-trafficking efforts
If the idea of kicking down doors still appeals to you, you may consider financially supporting agencies who work with local police forces around the world to free those trapped in slavery like A21 or International Justice Mission.
Prevent child abuse
Another option I highly recommend is to take the 30 minute training on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children provided by Darkness to Light. If you are a parent, an educator, or in church leadership of any kind, I highly recommend you also take the Stewards of Children Child Sexual Abuse Prevention training. These trainings will teach you how to protect the children in your sphere of influence from sexual abuse, which creates vulnerability for human trafficking. As a certified D2L facilitator myself, I can vouch for the quality of these trainings and the efficacy of preventing the most vulnerable of us all—our children.
Help the one
When I consider the overwhelming problem of human trafficking, I am reminded of the story about the gentlemen throwing starfish back into the ocean after a storm. When a passerby mocked his efforts as barely making a difference in light of the hundreds of creatures littering the shore, the man’s response was to throw another starfish into the sea and say, “It made a difference to that one.”
It may seem that whatever you might be able to do is minuscule in comparison to the global problem, but eternity will reveal the ripple effect your donation, purchase, or phone call made in the life of an individual and their family for generations to come. Maybe you can’t help the millions, but you can help the one—and we all know what God can do with even the smallest of offerings given from a kind and generous heart.
Hide and seek is a game we learn as tiny children. Even before we become mobile enough to run behind a chair, we cover our eyes and think that this makes us invisible to those around us. We hide until “peek-a-boo” gives us sight once more and we giggle in delight of being seen and loved.
As we grow, we believe we are too mature for such childish games, and yet, we find ourselves hiding all the same. We hide from people we believe might disapprove of us, presenting only the most polished versions of ourselves. And we hide from God, covering our eyes, shielding our faces from His gaze, certain that if we look to Him we will see disapproval and judgment in His eyes. We hide out of fear that the love we so desperately want will be withheld from us. So rather than find our fears to be true, we run from that pain and cling to lesser loves in the hopes they will satisfy the deep desires of our hearts.
We see this pattern as early as the garden of Eden where God once roamed in the cool of the day side by side with Adam and Eve. Can you imagine their conversations? The loving glances, the laughter rippling through the flower-laden paradise. God delighted in them as dearly loved children.
Then one day, everything changed. Eve decided to listen to another voice besides her Creator Friend. She believed a lie that there was more for her beyond what God gave. She grasped for satisfaction in things and ideas that were not meant for her to explore. Things God had cautioned her against for her own safety and happiness.
That night, when Eve heard God’s voice calling for her, she didn’t run to Him in joy as she had done every day before. She hid. She turned her face away, believing He would no longer love her as He once had. She was wrong about many things that day, but above all, she was wrong about the motives she ascribed to God.
A missionary friend shared with me an understanding of God many people in Africa adhere to as they have for centuries. They believe that a supreme being once was so near to man that if you reached out to him you could touch him. And then one day a woman preparing a meal reached over her head with a pestle and hit the supreme being, making him angry and causing him to withdraw from humanity. Now, in order to communicate with god, they must go through ancestors or lesser gods and goddesses.
It stuck me how this mythology resembles the early chapters of Genesis, but from a human perspective. The pattern continues today. I disobey God, or injure Him if you will. I feel shame and believe that God must want nothing more to do with me so I hide to protect myself and only approach Him through an intermediary like doing good things to earn His approval. But this isn’t the nature of God at all according to Scripture.
“But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked?”
Genesis 3:9-11
Genesis shows us a God who knew Adam and Eve had sinned and drew near to them anyway. He called to them, drawing them with kindness, coaxing them to confess. When they admitted their shame, He didn’t condemn them. He asked them who had influenced their thinking. This desire to hide hadn’t come from anything He had said. It had come from the one who seeks to kill, steal, and destroy. The Enemy of truth and love.
The rules were never meant to earn the favor of God. Adam and Eve had favor already. The rules were meant to protect them from a harm—a lesser life than God’s perfect best for them. Moses tried to explain the same thing to the Israelite people centuries later.
“See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?”
Deuteronomy 4:5-8
By living a holy and pure life that looks drastically different from the culture we live in, we draw people’s attention to God. The commandments weren’t given to restrict, but to lead Israel and all those they encountered into freedom and abundance.
Several weeks ago I listened as a woman shared her reaction to the idea of God looking at her. She turned her face away and held up her hand as if to shield herself from attack. The idea she has of God being angry and disapproving of her is one planted in her mind from the father of lies, not the Lover of her soul. If she gathered the courage to withdraw her hand and truly look at the Father without the mental walls she hides behind, she would be overcome with the love she sees in His eyes. God loves her so much that His own son died so they would have nothing between them ever again. But in her fear of being naked and exposed before God, she quickly covers herself with leaves and keeps her eyes fixed on the ground at her feet. My heart breaks for the love she’s missing out on and the peace that comes from seeing God smiling in adoration as you toddle toward Him with faltering, imperfect steps.
God understands the brokenness of the planet we inhabit and the damage sin has done to our hearts—sin that we have chosen and sin we have been the victims of by the hands of others. We are a battered and bruised people, but our God is the Great Physician. He is the balm for our weary souls. When we hide from Him our wounds go untended.
If you can, gather the courage to sit in silence for a few moments and ask God to show you what He really thinks of you. I did this several years ago full of fear that I would see the glaring disappointment and rejection I had come to believe was my lot in life. In my mind, I knew all the theology of love, but the Enemy had used painful circumstances to convince me I was a failure who could never be good enough or worthy enough to be fully loved by God. He might put up with me because of Jesus, but there would always be a mountain of improvements I’d need to make to get on His good side. I was wrong.
When I prayed, eyes closed and face lifted to the winter sun, all I could think of was a warm and twinkling smile. It was as if God whispered in my spirit that He not only loved me more than I could imagine, but that He really liked me too. In fact, He delighted in me and loved that I had come to Him to spend those quiet moments with Him. It made me cry.
My tattered heart began to heal that day. Slowly and gently God has continued to root out my faulty beliefs about His nature and replace them with the truth of His loving kindness toward me and the friendship He desires to have with me just as He had with Adam and Eve before sin and death arrived. I still struggle—some days more than others. But when I do, I’m able to go to Him and ask Him to show me what is true. I’m never disappointed.
Friend, I know it’s hard and scary to ask God to show you the truth. You may have heard from parents or spiritual leaders or friends all the ways that you fall short in their eyes, but God is different. When Jesus died, He painted over that list of wrongs with His blood. Submitting yourself to Him washes your heart as clean and bright as a summer sky after the rain. When God looks at you, He sees His daughter, glowing with the radiance made possible on the cross. You may have a hard time seeing it in the mirror, but if you ask God to show you, I promise He will.
May you have the courage to lift your head and look into the eyes of the God who loves you and is near to you today and always.
As trees begin to bud and tulips peep above the winter ground, thoughts turn to spring and new life. I’m not a gardener, but I love wandering through a well-tended space. The smell of the damp earth and the beautiful blooms stir something in me—a yearning I suspect is as ancient as the first garden, Eden.
It was in a garden where God knelt to gather earth and form it into a man. God breathed into that clay and man became a living soul. It says in Genesis that God planted the garden and then placed Adam and Eve there to tend it.
Scripture doesn’t tell us how long Adam and Eve enjoyed the work God had given them in the paradise He had prepared for them. It does mention God joining them to walk in the cool of the evening. Calling their names to have them come close.
“Adam. Eve. I’m here.”
Can you imagine? Rinsing off the sweat and dust from the day, pulling your hair up off your neck, and strolling through paradise with your Creator, your Best Friend. Just the thought of it fills my chest with longing.
Still, at some point, Adam and Eve became tempted with the idea of more. I’d like to fault them for it, but I have the same desire coursing through my veins as well. The idea of more wisdom, more pleasure, more, more, more—it never goes away. And when the right temptation is placed in front of me at the right time, it’s awfully hard to say no. Be it a forbidden apple or a chocolate drizzled piece of cheesecake, we humans are a “yes please” people.
The amazing thing isn’t so much that Adam and Eve turned their attention and satisfaction away from God and chose their own path. The shocking thing is that God witnessed their rejection and sought them out anyway. He knew they had tasted rebellion and sin and death. He knew they would never be pure apart from His intervention on their behalf. And yet, He loved them enough to leave Heaven and come to them in the cool of the day as always.
“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
Genesis 3:8
I wonder if He thought of that first garden encounter when He knelt in the garden of Gethsemane, preparing to give His life for the lives of those very same people He created so long before. People that had come to Him for bread and healing yet rejected His offer of relationship. People who had cried, “hosanna,” days before and were about to cry, “crucify Him” in the hours to come. Despite all the heartache humanity had poured on His shoulders, He still willingly gave His blood for us. Blood that made a way for us to live with Him forever in the new heaven and new earth He is preparing for us now.
Mary Magdalene didn’t understand all that had been granted to her that morning she wept in the garden outside His empty tomb. She thought her hopes for the future died with Jesus. Can you imagine the confusion coursing through her as she pleaded to the man she thought was the gardener to show her the body of her friend? She was devastated already at losing Him and then horrified that she might not be able to properly prepare His body with the care He deserved. Then in a moment, her name on His lips changed everything.
“Mary.”
The love and compassion in those four little letters makes me cry. Sin took down the human race, but Love won the fight. Death steals. Life gives and gives and gives for eternity. Satan breaks his promises. Jesus allowed His own body to be broken to fulfill every promise He ever made.
This Easter weekend you may feel as Mary did—heartbroken and weary and afraid. But there is hope for you just as there was for her though she didn’t see it yet. She saw an empty tomb and believed the worst had happened. She couldn’t imagine a future where Jesus walked with her full of life, eyes sparkling with joy and celebration from all He had accomplished. A future that was moments away from the grief she was in at the time.
This world still rotates in brokenness and pain. Every day death steals those we love. Sickness sweeps the planet and disaster is almost celebrated on the nightly news. Yet Jesus stands beside us and calls to us through our suffering. He speaks our name, reaches out a nail-scarred hand, and smiles—a cheesy, playful, I’ve-got-a-secret smile because He knows what’s coming.
Take His hand, my friend! Get to know Him as more than the angry man who flipped over the tables in the temple and put Pharisees in their place. Walk with the man who had all the fish hide on the other side of the boat just so He could surprise the men with an abundance after a long night of catching nothing. Place your hopes on the One who grabbed the keys of death and hell right out of the hand of the Enemy and then walked through walls to tell His friends about it. (You can’t tell me He didn’t have a good belly laugh over the looks on their faces when He pulled that stunt.)
Jesus is SO full of bubbly, sparkling, life and He wants to share it with you! Not just when you get to heaven, but today and Tuesday and on Tax Day and the Monday after that. Jesus will meet you in your garden whether it’s in a season of confusion or in the middle of a mess of your own making.
Jesus’ dying wish was to be your friend. Won’t you grant Him that? He loves you. He’s calling your name. Don’t hide from Him like Adam and Eve did. Hug His neck like Mary.
Are you observing Lent this year? Growing up Baptist, Lent was never something I understood or observed. In case you are also unaware of the practice, Lent is a 40-day period of fasting beginning on Ash Wednesday and continuing through Easter Sunday. It is a reminder of Jesus’ 40 days spent fasting in the wilderness in preparation for public ministry and is intended to prepare hearts and minds for Passion Week and the celebration of the Resurrection.
Rather than subtracting something from your life, or perhaps in addition to fasting, you may find it encouraging to add something new into your spiritual preparations for Easter. There are three things I’ve been doing lately that have added greatly to my understanding of Jesus, and my joy in our relationship. I’m sharing them with you today to encourage you to find ways to create space in your life for Holy Spirit to bring renewal to your spirit and understanding of how God is at work in your daily circumstances.
1. Reading the Gospels on repeat
As a fan of Annie F. Downs and her bubbly 7-ness, I received this suggestion from her podcast, That Sounds Fun. In 2020, Annie read the Gospels through every month and often commented on how much she was learning from the life of Jesus as she examined it over and over again throughout the year.
While I haven’t followed the strict monthly schedule, I have been reading the Gospels through repeatedly with the goal of trying to get to know Jesus better and to allow His words be the primary words I am taking in to my heart. Social media can be a wonderful tool, but it can also fill your mind with opinions and attitudes that are less than healthy and even dangerous. In addition to cutting back on the voices of strangers, adding the voice of Jesus into that space is a welcome source of peace and clarity.
2. Reading Beautiful Outlaw by John Eldredge
If you follow my Instagram account at all, you know I love to read and recommend good books. I find myself recommending John Eldredge books often and Beautiful Outlaw is no exception. Mr. Eldredge does a wonderful job of highlighting the delightful aspects of Jesus’ personality that are easy to miss in a casual reading of Scripture. This book also sheds light on some of the more confusing interactions Jesus had in the Gospels.
It’s hard to love someone that you don’t know or understand, including Jesus. But the more you get to know Him, the easier it is to love Him and interact with Him as you go throughout your day. Getting to know Jesus as a person is the first step in becoming His friend, and I can’t imagine a greater BFF to have than Jesus, can you?
Beautiful Outlaw is a wonderful companion to reading the Gospels. It will help you see Jesus as His disciples did 2,000 years ago and as He continues to interact with His disciples today.
3. Journaling the thin spaces
If you’re a fan of the tv show Fringe, you may think of a thin place as a geographical place where the invisible barrier between universes is thin enough to pass from one to another. In Celtic spirituality, the term is used to refer to moments where heaven and earth seem to collide.
Moments where God felt present and His kingdom felt “on earth as it is I heaven” used to be few and far between in my life. But as I’ve grown closer to God, I’ve realized these moments are all around us at all times if we have the eyes to see them. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning once said,
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.”
One of the best tools I’ve found to help me have “eyes to see” is journaling. Intentionally pausing for a few moments to record a special encounter with God, or delight in one of His good gifts helps me be more mindful of them as I go throughout my day. Writing things down also helps to sort through the brain clutter to discover what you actually believe. You could use a spiral notebook, the back of a receipt, or the margins of your Bible. It doesn’t have to be fancy or formal. Any way that you can train your mind to be aware of God at work in your life is the right way.
Since Easter is just a few weeks away, I’d like to invite you to join me in spending concentrated time focusing on Jesus by reading through the Gospels and journaling aspects of His personality that might be missed in a casual reading. With this goal in mind, I’ve created a free downloadable resource to share with you called Becoming Friends with Jesus.
Becoming Friends with Jesus is a full-color guide that includes 30 reading and journal prompts to help you get to know Jesus better. You can print it like a brochure and tuck it into your Bible or follow along on your computer, tablet, or phone. Just follow the link and enter your email and this free resource will land in your inbox momentarily.
(Psst…Downloading this guide will add you to my email list to receive blog posts approximately once a month. If at any time you’d like to unsubscribe from these emails, it’s super easy to do so.)
I hope you will join me in getting to know Jesus better over the next 30 days! Let’s make this year’s Resurrection Sunday a celebration unlike any you’ve experienced before.
I’m not asking if you believe in God as I might ask if you believe in aliens or in Santa. But rather, do you believe that what He says is true? Do you believe that the promises of Scripture are meant for you? Do you believe that the talents He has gifted you with were meant to be a blessing to you and others? Do you believe that the dreams He has laid on your heart in the dark hours of the night will come to pass in time?
Much of my life I’ve studied God’s Word and accepted it as truth from an intellectual perspective. God says that His Word is truth and therefore it is. History and science also provide proofs to Scripture’s validity. I believed the Bible to be true on behalf of others who struggled with doubt or worried that God wouldn’t come through for them. I’ve prayed in faith that God would meet their needs. I’ve also prayed that God would meet my own and He has. I know Him to be faithful and true to His Word.
But there is one dream I have that is so dear to my heart I’ve been afraid to fully give it to God. I’ve prayed around it. I’ve worried about it. I’ve hoped it might come true. But outright believing that God placed this dream in my heart and gifted me for it that I might pursue it for my joy and the benefit of others feels scary. Like perhaps He’s set me up for failure. It’s the dream of being a successful writer.
I know that you can define “success” in many ways, one of them being to help another person with your words. Just one solitary person finding hope because of a blog post or book is a wonderful thing. So in that sense I can claim success today.
But if I’m honest, my heart wants more. I want to help hundreds, if not thousands, of people find freedom in Christ. I want my books to win awards for literary excellence. I want my name on the New York Times Bestseller List.
All of that feels so out of reach that it would definitely be a “God thing” for it to happen. It also feels prideful to admit I have these desires. It feels like I’m not a good Christian because “good Christians” are to be humble and small and those who find success are sell-outs who have turned away from God to chase the success of the world. I don’t know exactly where those feelings came from. Perhaps I’ve internalized false messages. I can’t say for sure.
What I do know is that God is leading me to take a new step in my faith—to trust Him and His goodness at a deeper level than I ever have before. The foundation of this step was laid last year as He laid the word “transformation” on my heart (read that post here) and then began to transform my mindset, body, habits, and more throughout the months of 2020. Last year felt preparatory—like I was standing at the edge of a cliff. This year feels like I’m stepping off.
I’m free falling. Some might call it going “all in.” Some might call it foolish or even sinful, but in my heart I know it’s right. I’ve decided to believe.
Luke chapter 1 records two examples of people God chose to use in extraordinary ways. Zechariah was a priest. This is how Luke introduces him:
“In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.” (Luke 1:5-7)
As you can see, Luke enjoyed conjunctions as much or more than I do. *cheeky grin*
You might think of Zechariah as a sort of “preachers’ kid” today. He was born into the tribe of Levi, otherwise known as the priestly line. By nature of birth, he was raised to serve in the Temple in Jerusalem and fulfill certain duties. He was in the process of doing these when an angel came to him and told him he would become a father in his old age. He had all the Bible knowledge to know that what God said would happen. It was just a matter of time.
But Zechariah, despite being a professional servant of God, looked at his circumstances and responded in doubt. They had prayed for years for a child and been disappointed. Now it was too late. They were too old. The timing was off. It wasn’t possible. Gabriel’s response? “…behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”
Doubt stole Zechariah’s voice. He couldn’t tell his wife the good news. He couldn’t share the blessing of Elizabeth’s growing tummy with the neighbors. He couldn’t sing for joy in the shower. He was silenced because of his unbelief.
Several verses and six months later, the angel Gabriel made another visit to the Holy Land to share good news with a young woman named Mary. There would be another miraculous birth. Mary would bear the Messiah despite being a virgin and remaining in that state until after Jesus’ birth. It seemed impossible. Crazy even. She was poor, likely uneducated, certainly not a spiritual leader like Zechariah.
Mary’s response was not to doubt, but to ask a clarifying question. The birds and bees talk didn’t cover immaculate conception. But once Gabriel shared the details she was “all in.”
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
Mary knew people would misunderstand her situation. They would judge her apparent sin. They would heap accusations and shame on her head, on her fiancé, on her family. They would accuse Jesus of being an illegitimate bastard during His ministry. But despite the rejection, shame, and reproach she was about to endure, Mary believed God and put her faith into action by rushing to visit Elizabeth.
Two promises of God. Two different responses. One doubted and lost the joy of entering into God’s plan to the fullest capacity. The other embraced God’s promise, acted in faith, and was blessed immeasurably for it.
For many years, I’ve lived like Zechariah—working for God as expected but gripped with doubts, fear, worry about what people thought of me—always waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop. This year, I’ve committed to acknowledge the fear, the unknown, the misunderstandings, the bad reviews, and all the rest, but putting my mustard-seed size faith to work anyway. I may never hit a best seller list, but I for sure won’t if I don’t work hard to make my novels the very best they can be. I may never reach 10,000 email subscribers, but it’s a guarantee that I won’t even reach one if I keep my words to myself and my blog posts unwritten.
God won’t bless a person who is unwilling to partner with Him.
So for the next 11+ months of 2021 I have committed to believe that there will be a fulfillment of the dreams God has laid on my heart in His time. I will work towards making them come true and I will praise Him when they do. And at every turn I will thank Him for choosing me to take part in the work He is doing in the world.
“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” – Luke 1:45
So what about you?
Have you made a commitment to believe God and pursue the dreams He has placed in your heart? Have you shared your dream with a trusted friend and prayer partner? If not, I’d love to dream with you. Feel free to message me and together we will believe that what God has promised will come to pass.
