God, WHY?
I've been asking this quite frequently these last two days. I'm so frustrated. Never before have I felt so completely helpless.
Last night, while sitting outside in the courtyard, I witnessed a prostitute proposition a customer and get into his car, driving off to who-knows-where. (I don't like calling these girls and women prostitutes: I think it's a degrading label.) I frequently see and talk to the women walking our street, but never had I witnessed a girl getting picked up by a john (a man soliciting sex from a prostitute.) I felt so angry. It was evident she was not happy with what she was doing. I was so disturbed. I know that prostitution is one of the biggest problems in our neighborhood. Heck, we live in the most dangerous neighborhood of Las Vegas. We regularly see and try to talk to the girls walking the street as they pass by our base. It hurts my heart, but the pain was magnified when I saw a woman that we just talked to get into that car. How, God, how am I supposed to feel any type of love or remote kindness for the man that is taking advantage of this woman, decreasing her self-worth? I want to tell this man that he is destroying her. She has mentally separated herself and is nothing but a shell when "working:" a hollow shell devoid of emotion. That is the only way she can survive.
I wish that was the first and last time I saw the street sex business in operation, but no. Tonight, as a friend and I were running, we paused to let a car drive into the bank parking lot. As he pulled in and drove to the back of the parking lot, it was evident that the driver just picked up a girl off the street. I felt sick. We began simultaneously praying and running.
God, how am I expected to love these men?
I want justice.
However, I remember the story of the boy that confessed to his family of raping his 3 year old sister. When crying to his father that he had a problem and needed help--the right type of response--his father stripped him naked and shot him twice in the back of the head. As horrifying as this story is, it parallels our thinking of hate and revenge towards those who have committed awful crimes. Do we really want justice? If God truly did deal out justice, then ALL of us are royally screwed. If we received the justice we deserve from God, we'd be goners. Our role is to give God the justice He deserves and He gives us undeserved mercy. Because we receive mercy from God, so must we show mercy to others.
Two weeks ago, we listed to a sermon by Paris Reidhead, a rather unknown pastor from the 1960s. His message, Ten Shekels and A Shirt, contains mentality-shifting messages on our humanistic worldview and the theme of justice towards God. We are at fault for trying to get something from God rather than give to Him the justice He deserves. The message ends with the Moravian prayer: May the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of His suffering.
I encourage you to listen to this dynamic message packaged in an old recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76BUB9IchNU
Despite our two outreaches each week to the restoration home, womens' shelter, and outreaches on the street, I still wish I could do more. I know that my program is focused on education, but I become impatient and want to do something more. I don't like feeling helpless.
I need to be still and know that He is God. Nothing goes unnoticed by Him and His heart is grieving far more than mine. There is a time for learning, and a time for pouring out. I can't fix all the problems. I can't immediately change our faulty laws that criminalize a prostitute despite her complete control and abuse under a pimp. I can't mend the broken families in this neighborhood that create the runaway and broken girls. I can't end the production of porn that fuels sexual exploitation. If I didn't give these feelings of heaviness and sorrow to God, I would become so burdened. I have to continually remind myself of His great love and through that, love these girls, love the johns, and love the pimps.
I may become momentarily mad, but I can't remain in that state. God's love is too big.
No comments:
Post a Comment