The answer to Human Trafficking

Do you ever have a moment when you’re overwhelmed by one of the “wrong” things of the world?  Maybe it’s as basic as fighting a bad cold (I’m in that group this week), or maybe it’s as personal as the loss of a loved one. This Saturday I’m helping to host a training day about Human Trafficking in our state. When I consider that the scenic by-ways of the region I call home are also routes for the transport of commercially exploited people, my heart doesn’t want to believe it.  Knowing the children advertised online, younger than my own children, are just a handful of an estimated 27 million slaves around the globe makes me feel … sick. Where did such ugliness begin, and does God have an answer for it?

It started in Genesis 3 with the first suggestion that forbidden fruit would really be satisfying and without consequence.  Such a lie. But God responded with a promise that He would get life back, using a child of the woman herself, and He did. It’s the one thing that gives me hope when I learn things like the average age of entry into prostitution in my own country is between 12 and 13 years old, or that children are moved from state to state so their captors won’t be caught, or that life expectancy is only 7 years once a child is taken into trafficking.  Only God can redeem such evil.

It’s timely that this Human Trafficking Training Day is in March, the same month we celebrate Resurrection Day.

Because Jesus conquered the ugliness of pain, death, and slavery, every person has hope of healing, of getting life back.  “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”  (1 Peter 2:24)

If we know Christ and how His Resurrection changes OUR lives, then we should have a desire like Paul: “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11)  As Paul knew the Resurrected Jesus personally, it changed the way he spent his life, changing him from an evil name on the “Most Wanted” list to a new man who was a spokesman for God’s power to change lives. “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Cor. 5: 20,21)

People who really “get” the Resurrection live to help others “get” it too.

Resurrection Day (Easter to some) is my favorite holiday.  It gives everything else meaning, and it answers evils like Human Trafficking with the promise of abundant life.  Come with me to Do Not Depart this month, where our team will be sharing Bible Study Tools about the Resurrection.  They’ll include printables and helps for your personal quiet time, study, and influence.

See the list of the people in the Bible who were raised from the dead, a glimpse of our future Resurrection.

I appreciate your prayers this week as we prepare for a powerful day of equipping people in our region to understand Human Trafficking and how God is moving against it here.