Little Red Packages

In the last two days I have received several invites to "Red Envelope Day".   All of the invites I have received have been from Christian friends who no doubt love Jesus; so before I signed-up I went to the Red Envelope Facebook page to get more information.

Red Envelope Day is an event that has been designed to, in the founders of the events words, "show our President and the world that the voices of those of us who do not believe abortion is acceptable are not silent and must be heard." This is largely in response to Presidents Obama's statement that he would move to overturn the Freedom of Choice Act if elected President.

While I find abortion vile and reprehensible as an act, I continue to marvel at the churches and believers to it. Some of the quotes from the site are below

"I wish we could send 50 million red envelopes, one for every child who died [in the U.S.] before having a chance to live."

"It may seem that those who believe abortion is wrong are in a minority. It may seem like we have no voice and it's shameful to even bring it up. Let us show our President and the world that the voices of those of us who do not believe abortion is acceptable are not silent and must be heard."

"Together we can change the heart of The President and save the lives of millions of children."

"An empty red envelope will send a message to President Barack Obama that there is moral outrage in this country over this issue"

There is no doubt that the lives of 50 million children being killed is a tragedy and so are the thousands who are killed in wars and the close to 6 million globally (1 every 5 seconds) who die each year of hunger. I pray that the same voice for the right of the unborn are wanting the same as the living who also are helpless and have no choice as they by happenstance were born in the wrong country.

I also wonder when we as believers started to demand that we have a voice?   Why are we so determined to have a voice?   Truth is we have had a voice for many years when it comes to abortion and have used that voice by and large to convince the world that we are mean spirited, unloving and harsh.   I do not think this is what Jesus had in mind.   I wonder what would happen if instead of "demanding to be heard" we used our voice to:

- speak to these pregnant women and tell them we love them
- used our voice to serve them
- used our voice to pray on their behalf
- used our voice to tell them that while we hoped they chose life that regardless we will still love them and so would God and Jesus
- used our voice to offer to adopt these babies and allow these mom's to see their precious baby grow and live

- instead of using our voice we just listened speak of their pain and confusion

It seems to me that if we use our voice in that matter, the Spirit of God would then change the hearts of men and women as only He can. The the love of Jesus would permeate and we would see more lives being brought into the world and hearts changed.

Maybe instead of being outraged we need to be loving.   The times Jesus became outraged was with the religious of the day.   There was plenty for Him in that day of which to be outraged, the Romans were as pagan as you get, but we see Him loving those who needed love. Listening to them, speaking with them, serving them and ultimately dying for them, for us .... all of us.

I pray that we use our voice in such a manner and instead of outrage and demands, we love and serve and allow the Spirit to do His work through us and in this understand that we in and of ourselves will not change men, only Jesus can.