I met a man at the bar the other night who, when he heard we were part of a Christian mission organization, promptly asked, “Then why are you here at the bar??” So I began explaining a little about our ministry and how we were there to show the girls that they are valued and loved infinitely more than any price tag put on them. He then questioned me further, wanting to know what I had found to be the main reason the girls start working at the bar. I told him that money was the biggest issue—usually they have to/are forced to support their family in some way. He then asked how many of them are there by choice, as if to imply that the customers are justified if the girls want to or are choosing to be there. But since when is someone not valuing themselves permission for others to devalue them as well? Buying a human being for your own pleasure—this is okay as long as the person “wants” to be bought? It sickens me to watch man after man fuel the prostitution industry because they think that somehow they are justified in their actions or plain old don't care whether it's wrong. It’s heartbreaking to see a man who is old enough to be my dad or even my grandpa so seeped in darkness that he finds pleasure in paying a young girl to pretend to love him for a night. What kind of "pleasure" is that? It’s easy to become angry at these men, but as I take a look at their lives, the Lord fills me with compassion for them because they are so incredibly lost in darkness that they are THAT empty, THAT desperate for even the most twisted, counterfeited version of love.
So in your prayers, don’t pray only for the prostitutes, but pray also for the men who fuel this industry; pray that they will wake up and realize what they are doing. Pray that they recognize their emptiness and their need for something—someONE to fill that emptiness so that they will seek and come to know the amazing Love of the Father.
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love. Psalm 103:8
