Wednesday, January 11, 2012

What I Do Have

Today is Human Trafficking Awareness Day. This is an issue I have become increasingly aware of in the past few months or so. That innocent and poor human beings, some very young, all vulnerable, are tricked, coerced, and held against their will, in order that someone else may make money out of the labor of their hands or the sexual sale of their bodies. 

Did not He who made me in the womb make him?
And did not One fashion us in the womb?
Job 31:15

This is verse is from a really interesting chapter of Job (I recommend going and reading the whole thing), where he catalogues a very specific definition of righteousness. In the section of this particular verse, he is discussing the way he has treated the people who work under him, that he has not ignored their complaints or mistreated them--and this is his reason--do we not each have the same Creator?

Should we not all have this same level of respect for our fellow human beings? Should we not be--I was about to say outraged--and outrage is an appropriate response--but it is not my response. I don't get angry very much. But when I think of what little I know about this particular thing that goes wrong in the world, I am sad. And I want to do something. I want to take the helpless ones in my arms and offer them some comfort. I want to give them a chance to live the free life that is all I have known.

I don't really have money that is mine to give (not in a dependable regular way; I'm not saying I never give any) at this stage of my life, and I do not have the tongue or the boldness to go around telling people about these things, and I do not yet have a path clear to what my mission in life is or how I should be seeking it. But what I do have I give to God to use: I have my heart and prayers, I have my pen (or keyboard, more literally in this case), and I have my musicianship. I don't know how to incorporate these things into God's mission, and I don't know what jobs He may have for me, but I offer what I do have, for Him to use as He sees fit.

But Peter said, "I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!"
Acts 3:6
For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.
2 Corinthians 8:12

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