Women and Nations Inside of Them

One night, while praying on a balcony in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I asked the Lord a question that had been heavy on my heart after touring two Buddhist temples the previous day: What would it take for a country that is 94% Buddhist to be turned upside down on its head? His response: They need to see Christ.

That month, I was working with an organization called Lighthouse in Action, founded by Emmi Khanthana, an incredible woman of God who is dedicated to ending human trafficking in Thailand. That month, I went out to the bars where women and lady-boys were being bought and sold every night. But when I walked into the bars, they didn’t need to see another Christian missionary. They needed to see Christ.

That same night, God brought me to John 12:24, which says, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” I needed to die. I needed to learn what it looked like to really die to myself and instead, have Christ come fully alive in me. To walk in the freedom that He has already given me. The freedom that is already mine. The freedom that was just waiting for me to wake up, grab hold and take possession of it.

Why?? He answered so clearly: “Because there are nations inside of you. There are nations inside of the women in those bars.” And I believe that there are nations inside of the women in the U.S. who are being trafficked every single day in our own back yards. People groups who are waiting for them to encounter God in such a way that propels them to go out and set other captives free.

Not too long after that, the Lord really began to open my eyes to the war that has been raging against women and why the enemy so desperately seeks our destruction. In Genesis 3:14-15, God cursed Satan, saying,

Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

I will put enmity between you and the woman. Enmity is defined as “hostility; the extreme ill will or hatred that exists between enemies.” When God created woman, He gave her the name Eve, which translates to ‘life bearer.’ But since that fateful day in the garden, women have been seen as enemies to the kingdom of darkness and Satan has used every tool in his possession to destroy the very bearers of life because he knows that to destroy a woman is to destroy the nations that the Lord has placed inside of her.

Sex slavery and human trafficking has got to be one of the cruelest and most devastating ploys of the enemy to destroy the life inside of a woman. But here we are, in 2013, with approximately 27 million people enslaved in the Sex Trade. And that doesn't include the men who buy them; the men who are just as bound, just as enslaved, just as much in need of being rescued and having their lives restored and redeemed. We can't afford to sit and do nothing. So in the words of Elie Wiesel, I leave you with this:

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.