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We humans are a funny breed, aren’t we?
We often don’t get serious about something until we see it. For whatever reason, things stay hypothetical until we optically view something.
For instance, I can talk about people sorting through trash at the local dump in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. And your heart might not be moved. But when you see it (and smell it) you will no doubt weep.
So it is with abortion.
Refusing to “move on”
Our hearts are quick to sink at the thought, at the reality. But soon we forget. I know it’s true for me at least. I’m appalled, but as soon as the next thought pops into mind, I move on.
Or, I’ll feel that “sinking” of my heart – and intentionally change thoughts so as to not bog down the good day I’ve got going, thank you very much.
I think we’re more groomed to remaining mentally comfortable than we realize. Like, why don’t I allow myself to be horrified by the horrors of this earth? Why am I so allergic to them?
It’s not OK, I don’t think. A vein of selfishness lies within this. A clinging to personal safety. But at what cost?
It’s only when someone is truly perturbed that a movement begins:
Jesus against religious hierarchy and hypocrisy.
Luther against cruel, power-hungry, Bible-less Catholicism.
Martin Luke King against slavery . . . On and on we could go.
So, let’s – if only for a moment – place our minds in an uncomfortable place, and dwell there until our blood boils.
The responsibility to rescue
Let’s start with Proverbs 24:11-12, and I’ll guide us from there.
“Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?”
Re-read that passage, thinking of unborn children inside an abortion clinic. Contemplate things from their side, and only from their side. Ponder the 50-day old sucking her thumb. The five-month-old with hiccups.
Forming slowly, innocent and beautiful – emblazoned with the seal of God’s likeness. Then whisked away into a sterile medical clinic, and “taken away”, surgically torn limb from limb – feeling the pain of it.
The Bible, we just read, calls us to do something about it. No longer can we say, “We did not know this.” We have no excuse to not rescue. And this starts with me.
Mental uncomfortability
Now use your imagination. I’ll repeat something I read from one of John Piper’s writings. Meditate on what goes on behind those sterile doors. And do it (yes, I mean this) until you get sick, until you just . . .can’t . . . anymore. Until your heart breaks.
Our country’s children are legally taken behind those doors and slaughtered. You know, Nazi Germany had a kind of social stupor hovering above their entire country last century. The commoners thought, “Gosh, this is too huge, too horrendous . . . I can’t do anything about it . . . maybe it’s not so bad, after all . . . ”
I live in America. The land of the free. Where about two million abortions occur every year. That’s 228 an hour. Or one abortion by the time you finish reading this sentence. Is it really a gem on our country’s crown to prize the mom’s choice of murder over the one who cannot yet speak?
What are we losing and at what gain?
What have we lost, to never return?
What would happen if we said, “Enough”?
Copyright © 2020 by Justin Talbert @ https://getgroundedministries.com. Used with permission. No part of this article may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from Lifeword.org