I can’t say that I haven’t felt fear. I’ve gone from fear to tingling excitement and back to fear and then both, tingling excitement and fear at the same time. I’m reading Starving Jesus and all I hear is, “Go! Do! Go! Do!” I’m reading Jesus Loves You this I know and all I hear is “Love the gutter; be the light.” I know it; I believe it. I just don’t know what it looks like for me. And here’s the Holy Spirit truth, I just don’t have to. When Jesus sent the disciples out, two by two, he gave them only a little instruction “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” Luke 6:7-11
That’s what it looks like. We go into the gutter and if we’re not welcomed, well, we can’t very well force ourselves in. God must go before us and pour out His favor. He’s in total charge. Then, my biggest fear: What if we get captured and become sex trafficking statistics? What if we die? What if . . . no one ever tells these pregnant strippers that Jesus loves them? What if this continues down each generation until Grandma, Daughter and Granddaughter disappear into the statistics of another gutter that Christians wouldn’t tell about Jesus? (true story, my friend said before she embraced Christ, she found herself in a strip club in Bible Belt USA. After the one stripper was done, she came to flirt and carouse. She said, “You’re gonna love this next dancer, she’s my daughter!” She came out pregnant. Oh, dear Lord, hear our prayer, the cry of your people crying out in the desert!)
I already knew that I wasn’t going to be able to do this alone and God drops Katie in my life. Katie’s a doer; she loves Jesus and believes everyone can be free. I have no doubt that when we step out and share the love of Jesus, those women will walk alongside us, too. My pride gets in the way when I think that maybe no one will hear us. But that’s not our problem. God is the one they will hear or not hear. God is preparing their hearts even now to come to Him. How freakin’ exciting! We get to be a part of that! Me, a nobody, a saved one who still sins. God is good. Jesus is real and the Holy Spirit is our guide. We can only go wrong by NOT acting.
PRAISE BE TO GOD! He is worthy to receive glory and honor and power! For you created all things and by your will all things were created and have their being! Revelations 4
Have you read Compelled by Love by Heidi Baker? I’ve read halfway through it and *love* it. I think you would really like her. She and her husband are missionaries in South Africa, they have orphanages around the world, and provide for all of their children by faith! They both have PhD’s in systematic theology, but they are so hands-on and down to earth and full of Jesus’ love (not that you can’t be with a PhD!)!