1..2..3.., Jesus Loves Me.

Last year, the girls learned a song in English that begins, "1..2..3.., Jesus loves me..." They nailed the first lyric and then fell into a mumble, jumble of nonsensical words that still sounded really cute. I suppose that they learned all they really needed to know in that first line.

There are three steps that one takes in order to live in the presence of the Lord which are outlined in Hosea 6:1-2, " Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day, he will restore us, that we may dwell in his presence." The return to the Lord is authentic repentance. I refer not to a sense of guilt or regret over the consequences and personal detriment that our wrong brings, but to a wretched place of despair and lament over the sin that occurred and exists in our life. One should not stay in this painful place of poignant grief over sin but after a sufficient and sorrowful recognition of the grief imposed on God and others, move on to the spacious places of revival and restoration. Arriving here is like a homecoming or a spring rain. It is a reclaimation of the knowledge that Jesus love us. However, arrival requires departure and as anyone who flies knows, sometimes departures are delayed.

Departure from depravity is a difficult thing. The more one dabbles in it, the more one becomes entrenched in it. An innocent taste of forbidden fruit becomes the unrestrained indulgence of repeated offenses which are inherited by generation after generation. It is diabolicol and rooted in the kingdom of Satan. I am convinced that we have frosted the truth of the spiritual battle with the icing of what is sensible and grounded in reason. We do not want to talk about the reasons why a man in Saskatchewan would slice and decapitate a stranger on a bus, putting the pieces of the body into his pockets. We want to avoid the reality that there is a 14 year old girl who has memories of being raped by uncles and their friends at the age of two. Where do these twisted and hideous impulses come from? In a distant village, parents are selling their own children to men who will buy them for $100 a night...and then, the mother and father sit and wait while the 'customer' gets his money's worth. The question remains, where do these despicable and destructive desires come from?

The devastation of depravity is not so distant to me anymore. It is as near as the Cristo Viene girls whom I love and evident in the Ayore villages where I spend my Wednesdays. It has ventured so close as to effect my dreams and burden my spirit. I woke up sobbing this morning. My last dream before waking up was of me scooping up a little waif of a toddler boy who was being violated by a group of men. In my dream, I pushed my way through the small mob, crying out the name of Jesus, and took up the dark haired victim into my arms. One person challenged my right to stop their activity. I knew in my sleeping state that I have no right, but Jesus has every right and God decided that I (we) would have the authority to prevent these atrocities in the name of his son, Jesus Christ.

Do not insulate yourselves and imagine that these atrocities are taking place 'somewhere else'. The faces in my dream were familiar and left me with the distinct impression that these abuses are not relegated to Bolivia. Although this dream was intensely disturbing for me, I am not left without hope. In fact, my disgust moves me to fight and stirs up such a determination within me that I wonder where and how to expend my offended sense of justice and righteousness. Please pray with me and my companions that we would be shielded from depression and hopelessness. Please pray that adults and children alike, the perpetrators and the victims, would be repentant, revived, and restored to the awareness of Jesus' love and live in his presence.