Spiritual Warfare

I've recently started reading a book called Adopted for Life by Russell D. Moore. I'm only on page 66 of the book, but it's already making me think, and I can tell it's going to really challenge me.

The timing of starting this book has really been neat. As everyone who lives in Mississippi knows, we have an election coming up on Tuesday. I NEVER talk about political matters on my blog, but there is something special about this particular election. We will be voting on a Personhood Amendment. It's called Proposition 26, and there are people who feel very strongly and passionately about why we should vote for or against this. The point of this blog post is not to have a political debate. I think we've all done our research and made up our minds about how we're going to vote at this point. What I do want to write down is what all the debating and the differing opinions over this Proposition has done for me.

Honestly, I'm so ready for Tuesday's voting to be over. I'm tired of all of the back and forth and arguing that is taking placed. But. I think it's been so good for me. The Lord has used this to make me even more passionately pro-life. He has also convicted me of my passivity on the issue up until now. Sure, I've always been pro-life. It's always made me sick to think of all the countless babies who have never had a chance to draw their first breath. It's made me want to cry to think of the tiny little lives growing safely inside their mother's wombs who have been snuffed out. But what have I ever done about it? I'm ashamed to say I've done nothing. It's not even something I've prayed passionately about, and that is just not acceptable.

I have also been so sad over how many people have said in the past few weeks in regards to this Personhood Amendment that they are pro-life but think exceptions need to be made for babies conceived through rape or babies who are very severely handicapped. Is not ALL life from God? Is it our place to decide who gets to live and who does not? We do not create life, and it is not up to us to decide when it ends, no matter how the child is conceived or what the child's mental capacity.

One thing that Russell Moore has said several times already in Adopted for Life is that taking care of children isn't charity; it's spiritual warfare. That has really resonated with me. Satan loves to go after the weak. These babies don't have a voice. They have been an easy target for him. Another thing Moore points out is that when God forbids the Israelites from sacrificing their babies to the demon god Molech in Leviticus, He says that He will punish not only the ones who actually sacrifice their babies, but He will also punish the ones who turn a blind eye. Wow. Standing by and doing nothing was a big deal to God back then, and I don't think that's changed. It's time for Christians to put aside passivity and speak up for these babies. It's time for us to fight for them. We need to go to war.

I do realize that not everyone has been passive like I have on this issue. There are people working tirelessly and advocating for these children. Thank God for these people's faithfulness! I want to be one of these people. I don't know what that will look like. I think it will look different for different people. But it's time to do something. Over the past few weeks, not only have I felt like shedding tears for unwanted babies, I actually have shed tears. And I'm not just crying for the unborn babies. There are unwanted children all over the world who need someone to love them and take them in. Fighting abortion should go deeper than just trying to save babies lives before they're born. As Christians, we are also commanded to care for orphans, whether they're orphans because their parents have actually died, or just because they're unwanted or abandoned. I don't think this necessarily means ALL Christians should adopt. But we should be caring for orphans in some capacity or another.

There was a question in one of the chapters I've read in Adopted for Life that REALLY made me stop and think. The author said, "Aborted babies can't say, 'Abba.' But the Father hears their cries anyway. Do we?"

I want the answer to that question for me to be "YES!" Lord, make me your hands and feet for the least of these.