to set free those who are oppressed

Wednesday night my parents and I happened to catch the movie "Mississippi Burning" just as it was coming on TV. As we watched, there were points at which I felt deeply troubled by what I was seeing. Even more than the horrific way the whites treated the black community, I was disturbed by the oppression I saw as evidenced by the black community's refusal to speak up about the injustices being committed. It reminded me of what I saw in "The Help," which also deeply troubled me.

A couple of days later I was looking at a worksheet my brother recently created that's intended to help people identify different aspects of God's design for them as individuals. One question on the worksheet asked, "What makes you mad?" I immediately thought of oppression. It's not just the historical racial oppression I see portrayed in movies that angers me, it's also the spiritual oppression I see in the lives of people I know personally. I had already been thinking about this a few weeks ago. I become extremely troubled when I see people I care about, brothers and sisters in Christ, missing out on the full life God intends for them because they're being oppressed by lies that have been fed to them by he who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. The worst of it for me is to see people who have given up fighting. It is not in my nature to give up, and I feel like my spirit is suffocating when I see that someone I care about has resigned him- or herself to the way things are, no longer seeking change because change has been thwarted so many times in the past.

{photo source}

As I've found freedom in God's grace and living for His Kingdom over the past few months, I've also experienced a deep desire to see others find that same freedom. Jesus said He was sent "to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set free those who are oppressed." We as believers are to carry on the work He began on earth. And lately it seems as though God has been shaping me with a particular draw to the part about setting free those who are oppressed.

Saturday morning I was praying about this and I thought again of "The Help" (the book version of which landed in my hands less than 24 hours after I watched "Mississippi Burning" and really started thinking about how much I hate oppression...coincidence?). I thought about how writing was the tool Skeeter used to fight the oppression she saw in her community. I've always considered myself a writer (though a slow one) and I suddenly wondered whether writing might be a tool through which God is leading me to fight spiritual oppression. I don't have any big ambition in this regard, I just think perhaps through this blog and through various personal communications part of God's design for me might be to fight spiritual oppression through my writing.

I've been re-watching season 4 of Chuck, and yesterday I was watching an episode in which Chuck has been captured during a time when he does not have the intersect, leaving him defenseless against his enemies. Sarah is bound and determined to find him and heads to the roughest part of Thailand when she gets word that's where he's being held. Once she arrives she agrees to fight someone in order to gain information about his specific whereabouts. (Meanwhile Chuck's mind is being poisoned with a substance that is designed to erase his memory.) This is not the only time we see Sarah kicking some tail on this show, but I couldn't help but notice the passion with which she fights in this scene.

{screen shot from the fight scene}

Sarah's passion resonated with me, because I feel passionate about helping to free people (especially people I already care about) whose minds are being poisoned by satan's lies, whose memories of God's truth and faithfulness are being stripped away, and whose hearts are becoming overwhelmed with such hopelessness and despair that they've stopped fighting for freedom. I wish a few powerful punches and a couple of roundhouse kicks would be effective in my situation (and that I knew how to deliver such to begin with, haha!), because it sure would feel good to release some of the frustration I feel when I witness oppression in people's lives! But as it is, it seems the weapons God has given me to use are those of prayer and pen (or keyboard, as it were). So my hope is that I can pray and write with all the fervor and determination I see in Sarah Walker as she fights physically to set Chuck free.

Last weekend I downloaded Josh Garrels' album "Love and War and the Sea In Between" (which, side note, just might be THE most fantastic album I've ever owned), and one of his songs really reflects my heart in all of this. I'll close with the lyrics, and if you'd like to hear the song you can listen at the bottom of the page.

Rise

I hung my head for the last time in surrender and despair
Before I'm dead, I'll take the last climb up the mountain, face my fears
The time has come to make a choice, use my voice for the love of every man
My mind's made up, never again, never again will I turn 'round

Though they may surround me like lions and crush me on all sides
I may fall, but I will rise
Not by my might or my power or by the strength of swords,
Only through Your love, oh Lord
All that's lost will be restored

Take courage sons, for we must go under the heart of darkness to set them free
But don't lose heart when you see the numbers -- there's no measure for the faith we bring
And it's given us to overcome if we run where the Spirit calls us on
The greatest things are yet to come; with the dawn we will rise

Though they may surround me like lions and crush me on all sides
I may fall, but I will rise
Not by my might or my power or by the strength of swords,
Only through Your love, oh Lord
All that's lost will be restored

Jesus, make me an agent of the restoration that comes only through Your love.