Transcendant and Imminent - trying to pull it all together (by Grant)

The first thing that I have to do while sitting here in the airport in Taipei is to aplogize for the use of big churchy words. I recently preached on the need for the church to use language the world can understand. I used the words Transcendant and Imminent in the title to this blog because those are the only words that would come to mind.

Transcendence is that quality of God where we see Him as being above us, greater than us, far away from us. It speaks of God's power and Lordship as He oversees all things.

Imminence is that quality of God where He comes close to us - Jesus is God come close. The Holy Spirit is the imminence of God where He is with us and even a part of us.

I chose these two concepts because that's the way I am processing the last couple of weeks. We have been very involved in the small picture, the closeup, the imminence. In the midst of thinking about that I am also thinking about the big picture, the wide angle view, the transcendence.

God sees everything in both views all of the time. God sees and loves the individual child in Svay Pak and He sees and loves all those trapped in the child sex-trade around the world. We have difficulting doing both at the same time which is not unreasonable. When we look at the big picture we can end up throwing our hands up in the air because the problem is too big to tackle - the evil is too fierce to confront. But when we look at the closeup as we've done the last couple of weeks we see the individuals, we see the victims and the abusers and those who profit from the trade. In seeing only the closeup we can become so focused on what we see that we can forget the bigger issues.

The first time I was in Cambodia in 1995 I met a girl named Kim who was living in an orphanage in the north of the country. She was 14 and had escaped from the pimps who bought her from her parents. She couldn't go home because her parents had sold her - she couldn't trust them and honour plays a twisted roll in this. I was disturbed by the story by glad that this girl was safe and was being protected. That same trip I chose to leave for home from Phnom Penh rather than spend a few days in Bangkok with Brian and Louise McConaghy partly because I just wanted to get home to my family and partly because I didn't want to go to a place that was so well known as a destination place for those who sexually abuse children.

When I returned home there was word of Canada writing a new law to prosecute Canadians who committed crimes against children in other countries. With Kim in mind I wrote to the Minister of Justice and urged him to press forward with the legislation. I thought that for me that letter might be the end of my involvement in the issue of child sex-trafficking and abuse. I was wrong.

Through becoming more involved in Cambodia through Fairview's involvement in funding the original orphanage building at Sunshine House and later our adoption of Sokna I learned that Thailand had begun to crack down on the child sex-trade - much of it moved to Cambodia. I have had an obvious connection to Cambodia for the last 13 years and the child sex-trade has been like a thorn in my soul ever since meeting Kim in 1995.

Marty loaned me a book by Bill Hybels and told me it helped him understand me - it is about "holy discontent." Holy discontent is that thorn in the soul that just won't go away until you do something. The child sex-trade in general and that trade in Cambodia particularly is my holy discontent.

I have known God's grace in this trip as I've had the opportunity of addressing my holy discontent in an "imminent," hands-on sort of way. Will I ever do something like this again? I doubt I will ever have the opportunity to do a job like this again but still I can speakout, I can make people aware and I can support those who are on the frontlines in the battle against the sex-trade.

I need to look at this issue with God's eyes as much as possible and see the individual child and the whole of the problem - transcendent and imminent.

May our Lord bless us all as we deal with our own "holy discontents" and as we see the issues through God's own eyes.

Grant