Do you ever just stop and think about how MASSIVE the world is? How many billions of people have so many billions of problems and dramas and blessings and issues and joys and fears? How does God keep it all straight? It’s like sometimes I think I’m the only one He follows around all day…hearing my every tiny prayer and comforting every little ache in my heart.

The incredible (and most breathtaking) thing is…I am the only one. Or rather, it’s like I’m the only one…and it’s like you are the only one. And that CEO whose bank account has taken a hit by the economy is like the only one. And that presidential candidate is like the only one. And the malnutritioned orphan is like the only one. And that pimp that sells girls and women so that he can have worldly riches is the only one. And those of us in our comfortable church pews are the only ones. And that starving drunkard on the street corner is like the only one…with all his past, his regrets, and his lost loves.

The only ones God loves. And He desparately wants that love in return. But He can’t require it. Then it wouldn’t be love.

I watched the movie Trade this weekend with Cody. It’s a movie based on a New York Times expose called The Girls Next Door. The articles and the movie are about global sex trafficking. Needless to say, the movie was intense and heartbreaking. And it points out that many problems like this are right under our noses. One of the quotes from the article:

In fact, the United States has become a major importer of sex slaves. Last year, the C.I.A. estimated that between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the United States. The government has not studied how many of these are victims of sex traffickers, but Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, America’s largest anti-slavery organization, says that the number is at least 10,000 a year. John Miller, the State Department’s director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, conceded: ”That figure could be low. What we know is that the number is huge.” Bales estimates that there are 30,000 to 50,000 sex slaves in captivity in the United States at any given time. Laura Lederer, a senior State Department adviser on trafficking, told me, ”We’re not finding victims in the United States because we’re not looking for them.”

It would be easy to let this be overwhelming…the more I learn, the more I wonder and get anxious about unmarked trucks and vans, homes with owners that seem vacant, children declared lost by Amber Alert…but I am only one person. And thousands of people care about this issue and these women. So there are easy tracks to follow and lots of teams to join. I could sit here all day and google tons of news articles and research about how entrenched society is in sex trafficking and how hopeless it is. But then I’d feel pretty crappy and miniscule.

Yet if I google even just one group whose sole existence is based on the awareness and rescue of these girls (and boys), I’m thrown into an entire network of countless groups, governmental groups and NGOs, who are committed to finding a solution. They probably lose sleep many nights because of it.

There could not be greater evidence that the world is fallen due to sin than sex trafficking and slavery. There is a clear distinction that dark and light forces exist, pulling our lives around like puppet strings. So you can either say it’s fate…that these specific choices people are making is simply fate…or you can believe there is something bigger and greater to be had. So try it. Just try it. Make a concious effort. Take God’s advice, even if you don’t believe in Him, and see if it works.

Let your mind and heart be open to a cause. Put others first. Give away your money. Enjoy your life and count your blessings but also let yourself feel for the broken and empty. See where it leads you and follow. Just for a little while.

See what happens.

The Countertraffickers; U.S. Department of Justice: Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section; Human Smuggling & Trafficking; International Justice Mission; FOX News; and so many more.