Putting Big Numbers In Perspective

Thirty-six million human beings live under the violence and injustice of modern-day slavery.

I shared the story below a while back. I’m going to tell it this weekend at one of our new partner churches. I thought you might appreciate an edited version.

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (Luke 15:3-7)

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A few years ago our team was invited to a neighborhood block party. It was a great time—burgers, bouncy houses, and what seemed like several hundred kids running everywhere. I remember sitting there watching all those kids and thinking about the rescued children at the HOME OF HOPE. An image occurred to me.

I wondered what would happen if a mom ran up and frantically announced that her child was missing. What would we all do?

There we so many kids. And we were having a great time. Why interrupt the party and spoil everyone’s fun…just because one child got lost.

But of course the party would stop. Everyone would drop everything. We’d all do whatever we could to find that child.

Folks would search every nook and cranny, and when someone finally found her playing with some blocks in the basement, oblivious to all the excitement she’d caused, we’d hear, “I FOUND HER! I FOUND HER!”

lost

Just imagine the collective cheer, something like the “rejoicing in heaven” to which Jesus referred.

Why? It’s just one kid, and there were hundreds of them running all over the place.

Because every single child is precious.

The FREEDOM TOUR partners with a HOME OF HOPE in New Delhi, India. 22 children live there, 22 children who have been rescued from human trafficking. Without getting too graphic, those 22 children were born in a brothel. Their mothers were victims, and that’s the life to which they were destined. It’s an endless cycle; when you rescue a child, you break the cycle.

Human trafficking, as an issue, is a dark, overwhelming evil. The numbers alone can be staggering—nearly thirty-six million humans living in modern-day slavery, more than 100,000 U.S children trafficked into prostitution every year, second-largest worldwide organized crime activity.

It’s easy to feel like our puny efforts are futile in the face of numbers like that. It’s tempting to give up. But those 22 kids at the HOME OF HOPE help me put those overwhelming numbers in perspective.

It struck me that evening at the party that if one child is priceless in God’s eyes, then those kids at the HOME OF HOPE were priceless times 22. They’re not 22 throwaway lives just because they happened to be born in a brothel halfway around the world.

They’re children of God. When one of them is saved, I believe there’s rejoicing in heaven.

They’re worthy of whatever sweat and sacrifice it takes to keep them safe, because it’s what we can do.

Our team won’t solve the human trafficking problem. Fixing the world is God’s job, not ours.

But we can make a difference, and so can you.

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