Redemption and City of God (from the archives)

Throughout the past couple of weeks the Lord has been revealing a lot to me about the ministries He is preparing me for. It has been an amazing time of sensing and understanding His call on my life, and also of understanding how the last 4 years have been preparing me for this. A friend told me a couple weeks ago that the pain would go away when I had some understanding of why I went through what I did. I didn't really believe her. Mostly because I felt like I understood what caused me pain. She was right. So much of the pain is wrapped up in the question of why God allows (or maybe even is the source of) so much pain. As I understand the necessity of the pain in preparation for what is ahead, it no longer lingers. IT IS MORE THAN OK. IT IS BLESSED. IT IS ALL WORTHWHILE.

I'm not ready to share all that the Lord is showing me right now regarding what I believe He is calling me to. All in due time. Yet, I do believe that there is a key that He has been teaching me all along. It is this: there is no place and no person beyond the light of God. No matter how broken and violated they have been. No matter how much they have broken and violated others. Redemption is real. He calls us to go to the darkest of places and trust that His light will shine all the brighter in the black.

Almost 4 years ago, I made my way to Biblical for my exit interview. I was walking down the hall about ready to kill my dream. My only reason being that I was being obedient to the voice of God. The Lord told me to pause by a table in the hallway. I picked up two items because He told me to, one of which was a pamphlet advertising that Steve Saint, son of Nate Saint, was going to be speaking. (I believe it was just after the End of the Spear was produced.) At the time it meant nothing to me. It was only over a year later when I reread Through the Gates of Splendor that I began to be touched by the impact of these families who went to the darkest culture they knew. And only after I watched The End of the Spear a year after that, that I understood the connections. The sacrifice of those men made a path for God to show up in a way that no darkness could hide from, and though years later, those same people who killed them became followers of Christ, in whose example they died.

The Lord keeps bringing me back to this question...Is there any place too dark for redemption?
No, I say. No.
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Here am I, send me.

I decided to repost this piece that I wrote last year for Deep Calls. The Lord keeps bringing me back to it. The Christ the Redeemer Statue overlooks many favellas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

photo by Paulinho

City of God

I watched a video last week. It was truly the most vile movie I have ever seen. It was all I could do to sit through the 130 minutes of violence, sex, drugs, foul language, and other “adult content” in its worst form. In fact, the only thing I can think of worse than seeing this movie would have been not to have seen this movie.

Let me explain. The movie, “Cidade de Deus” is based on the true story of a boy who grew up in a favella in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A favella is something like what Americans would call a slum. This particular slum was called “The City of God” and began as a government funded project where small cement shacks were built to put roofs over the heads of thousands of homeless families.The boy grew up and lived through the degeneration of this city into one of the most dangerous places in the world. A place overridden with horrific crime and the degradation of the value of human dignity and life. A place where children as young as 4 or 5 learned to kill senselessly with no remorse.

I was terribly disturbed. Even more so than after watching “Hotel Rwanda.” Not that I am trying to compared atrocities. But why? Are billions of people all over the world dying from hunger. And many organizations doing what they can to help. But what about places like this? Places that carry the darkness of Sodom and Gomorrah—seemingly beyond redemption. Places where the poison of evil corrupts every attempt at goodness. Places so dangerous war photographers won’t even venture.

What would it take to bring life and light to such a place? The question has been bothering me all week. Is there place so vile Christ cannot enter? What about all those children being overtaken by evil? Are they beyond the reach of redemption’s grasp?And then today, I had a thought. I remembered a man named Jim Eliot, and the book his wife wrote called Through the Gates of Splendor. I reread it about a year and a half ago. It has been very influential in my life. The book tells of the missionaries who were burdened to reach headhunters--the Auca Indians—with the truth of the Gospel. Anyone who had ventured to make contact with this people group had been killed. But Jim and his friends were determined to follow the call of God on their lives. They ended up dying for these people. It took a great act of courage for them to go, and it resulted in a tremendous sacrifice. They lost their lives…but not their legacy.

Sometime ago, I watched the movie “They End of the Spear” written by Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, who died at the hands of the Auca Indians.When Steve became an adult, God called him to go back and minister to the same Indians who had killed his Dad. If he hadn’t, we might never have known the rest of the story. The Indians who killed the missionaries had a divine encounter on the day of the attack. They witnessed the heavenly ascent of the men whom they had killed. That act of revelation, that act of God combined with the sacrificial act of men, cut a path through the jungle no one dared enter, and into the hearts of men.

So I sit back and I wonder if the City of God, and places like it, are the Auca Jungles of our generation. But would we be willing to go? I mean, I’d go in a second, right? I’m not afraid to die…most of the time. But then I stop and think, “Oh, but I am afraid of being raped. Could I risk that?” And then I think, “What about my children? How would I protect them? Is it ok for me to allow myself to be taken from them?” Could I entrust my children to God if something happened to me? Does God even ever ask that kind of thing of us?I would take a tremendous sacrifice. But so much more to penetrate that kind of perversion. It would take Divine Intervention.But who would go?Who should go?What would an act of love of that magnitude look like?One through which light and life could come into even the darkest of places.

Psalm 77:10-19
Then I thought, "To this I will appeal:the years of the right hand of the Most High."
I will remember the deeds of the LORD;yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.
Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God?
You are the God who performs miracles;you display your power among the peoples.
With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
The waters saw you, O God,the waters saw you and writhed;the very depths were convulsed.
The clouds poured down water,the skies resounded with thunder;your arrows flashed back and forth.
Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,your lightning lit up the world;the earth trembled and quaked.
Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen.