The Sex Trade And You
I felt like a remote observer watching Channel 4’s programme on the sex trade “Sex Traffic”. Remote because it seemed like another world was being opened up in front of me. A strange, new world, which I had never encountered before. An observer because I felt powerless and too ignorant to
know what else to be.
Without meaning to be, I seem to have become part of the problem. Not because I subscribe to or support these services. No. Simply because I seem to be in some sort of deep sleep walking through a world where such extreme crimes can be committed without my noticing them. Why didn’t I know? People are being traded and used as sex slaves, organised gangs are operating across countries. Women are subjected to a depth of abuse and suffering I can only try to imagine – and here I am asleep. Ignorant. Living in my little, much more perfect world.
This thought exercises me greatly. If I am called to serve the needs of a suffering world, shouldn’t I be, well… a little more in touch?
I accept we can not know everything – that’s God’s role. I also accept that I can not, on my own, change everything – and strongly doubt my wisdom to make the right changes anyway. But shouldn’t I try to be a little more aware? Just a bit? Shouldn’t I try walking through this world with my eyes wide open to
the hurts and needs of others?
So how to start, what change to make? Let’s start real small and see if the right urges will grow inside of us. How about reading one news story a week and stopping long enough to think about what it means in real life terms to the people affected? How about praying for them? How about seeing if there is
anything practical that can be done?
An elderly lady told me that she heard a woman’s son had been killed in her home town. She didn’t know the woman or the son, but she felt the so touched by this woman’s suffering that she found herself going to the lady’s home, walking up the path and ringing her bell. The bereaved mother opened the door, gaunt and tearful, to see a stranger. A stranger who said sorry and sympathised. This simple act opened the floodgates of sorrow and she felt able to cry and share and be comforted.
I may not be the type of person who can ring on a stranger’s door or convincingly comfort them. I might even cause alarm instead of joy. The gifts God has given me may lie elsewhere. That’s OK – He only asks that I care enough to listen to his guidance and to do whatever it is that he asks.
For speaking of God the Bible says
“He made heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them.
He keeps every promise forever.
He gives justice to the oppressed
and food to the hungry.
The Lord frees the prisoners.
The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down.
The Lord loves the godly.
The Lord protects the foreigners among us.
He cares for the orphans and widows,
but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.
Psalm 146:6– 9 (NLT)
I want to be more like him.