economics

It boils down to a question of economics. Take away the sexiness of the world’s hottest new topic. Strip it down to the core engine that drives the machine and your final destination has a price tag. The trafficking of humans for sex, for work, for organs, in the end is just a profitable financial transaction.

It is hard for us to wrap our minds around the fact that a father would sell his 12 year old. We cannot understand why a mother of 3 would leave her children in Bulgaria to take a job in Italy on the black market. It shakes our comprehension when we learn that a young mother makes a choice to prostitute herself. Her reasoning: After being sexually abused all her life, she finally decided that she might as well get paid for it. Ultimately, it is a question of economics.

As we learn more about this issue that tears at the very fabric of our global society, we discover a much more complicated, insidious, destructive heart issue at work. Yes, economics drive the industry but why is there a market? Lustful men? Pornography addicted cultures? Good people who turn a blind eye? Impoverished, vulnerable people groups! Yes and so much more.

This week at General Assembly, there have been workshops, and conversations, and lunches revolving around this topic and that is good. But the real answer to this destructive, dehumanizing, reality begins with a heart conversation between us and God. Do we love Jesus enough to let our hearts beat with his? Will we submit our dreams, our goals, our futures to a God that asks us to lay down our lives for our neighbor or even for a nobody? Are we willing to ask ourselves hard questions, like: ‘Am I somehow contributing to the economic reality that sees people as exploitable products?

As holiness people, let us ask God to help us find our voice to speak and to act with wisdom and grace.