You Can Feel Jesus In Your Bones.

December 8, 2012December 9, 2012 / Erin Kirk / 2 Comments

I read a story once about how a woman, who was deaf from birth, listened to music.

She would turn a record up really loud and place her hands on the speakers, until she could feel the vibrations move into her chest and overtake her body. The rhythms would eventually articulate and she could fill in the melody with her mind.

Knowing Jesus Christ is like that.

We’ve all heard the mockery in people’s voices when they talk about someone who has “gotten religion” or is “high on Jesus.” It’s not their fault; they just don’t know you can feel Jesus in your bones. They don’t know it’s possible for a deaf person to “hear.”

But it is.

When people shouted at me about Jesus, I couldn’t hear them because I was deaf; but I wasn’t blind and I could see they were shouting, which made me resent them.

But when I finally put my hands on that Bible and read it, I was surprised by the tiny hum that rose in my chest. As I read more, the hum grew stronger and engaged my heart, my imagination and my gratitude. When I read more, the drums picked up and created rhythm; the cellos formed a baseline and the violins and piccolos chimed in with a melody. All together now this internal orchestra has surged into something fine and true that I really want to share.

But try as I might I can’t explain it to you. You have to put your hands on the speakers until you can feel it in your own bones. Then you’ll know.

The Israel Philharmonic (Wikipedia)

Some people like Bob Goff, Joyce Meyer, Matthew Barnett, Chris Caine and Nancy Alcorn, play gorgeous music with their lives, but I’m still a young orchestra, and I’m sometimes pitchy or behind.

However, I’ve committed to practice and to follow the world’s greatest conductor, who promises the more I practice the finer my music will become. He is the most reliable speaker upon which to place your hands.

So with that, here is my tiny, little solo – a birthday present for Him.

I am raising money to counter human trafficking in SE Asia with The Exodus Road. In a week, we have raised nearly 30% of our $1400 goal. We have until Christmas.

The Exodus Road is playing some beautiful music right now. Please put your hands on their speakers, and when you’re done, put them in your pockets and help them play more.

How To Kick In A Brothel Door.

December 7, 2012January 1, 2015 / Erin Kirk / 2 Comments

Imagine for a second, your 16-year-old daughter is going to a job interview. You’re excited about that until hours pass and she hasn’t returned, nor is she answering her phone. You start to panic and call her friends and they haven’t heard from her either.

What you don’t know is the man she met was a human trafficker, posing as a business owner. He drugged her, threw her in a van and slipped her across an international border. Now, she’s locked in a room, possibly chained to a bed, with no phone or drivers license in a country whose language she doesn’t speak.

And there are a line of 20 men standing outside waiting to rape her.

This is so horrifying, your entire life stops. You host press conferences, social media blasts, work with private investigators and law enforcement, but what if you were poor and had no access to those resources? What if the cops you called were wearing a badge but working for the traffickers?

Wouldn’t you pray that somebody who had money, access to social media and the support of a scrupulous police force would help rescue your daughter? Wouldn’t you pray that some organization like The Exodus Road would kick in the door of just the right brothel and find her?

The Exodus Road is doing this in SE Asia. The A21 campaign is doing it in Greece and Eastern Europe. If you donate to my Exodus Road fund you are doing it from wherever you are. You are not standing by horrified as little girls and boys are bought and sold. You are officially part of the solution.

A21 says it like this: Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something.

Will you click the link and put $10 into the fund right now? Will you refuse to be paralyzed by the scope of this problem?

We’ve raised 10% of the money we need to fund one raid on a brothel in SE Asia, and I am amazed at that. I don’t even know most of the people who donated and yesterday got our first male supporter – thank you John!

We have two and a half weeks to raise the rest of the money. Will you help me? Giving money is the easiest thing ever and Jesus had this to say about it:

Give, and it will be given unto you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:38

What About The Hypocrites – An Excerpt.

December 2, 2012December 2, 2012 / Erin Kirk / Leave a comment

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter Five of Going To The Sea. It’s called Leroy.

…So maybe it isn’t all my fault, I fashioned a version of God I liked better than the one peddled by guys like Leroy or the cable news hosts who bluster on about America’s Christian heritage and then tell their guests to shut up on tv. By my second month, on the porch with my bible, I discovered, the things I find infuriating about religious hypocrites, infuriated Jesus as well.

For example, many people, even non-Christians, have heard the story of the woman caught in adultery, because it includes the famous scripture:

Lucas Cranach d. Ä. – Christ and the Adulteress – (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

In John chapter eight, the woman was brought by the Pharisees – the Jewish religious leaders – before a crowd to be stoned to death. It wasn’t a trial, because she’d been caught in the act. Incidentally, no, the man with whom she was caught was not dragged in with her, and yes that’s galling, but welcome to the Nation of Israel in the first century.

The woman, the scripture says, was in that dangerous position because the Pharisees were using her to catch Jesus violating Mosaic Law – something they were convinced his teaching did. Remember Jesus was a Jew, people called him Rabbi and under the law of Moses, adultery was a crime punishable by death.

“What do you say Jesus?” The Pharisees asked him.

Jesus knelt and wrote in the dirt with his finger. When he stood up, he said, “let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then he bent down and drew in the dirt again. One by one the crowd dropped their rocks and dispersed until only Jesus and the woman were left. Then Jesus stood up, looked at the woman and said,

“Where are your accusers? Has no one accused you?”

“No one,” she answered.

Then Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go on your way and sin no more.”

Jesus didn’t ignore what the woman had done, he clearly called it sin and told her to knock it off, but he didn’t ball up with a bunch of buddies and throw rocks at her either – even though the law required it. It was the Pharisees who wanted to throw rocks, but they couldn’t because Jesus called them hypocrites and dared them to prove it.

It’s a lucky adulteress who meets Jesus in a crowd.

How many times have I objected to Christianity because “Christians are hypocrites?” But read the story again if you must. Jesus extended mercy when the law required death. He called the Pharisees hypocrites, nobody called him one. Even though the Pharisees were pious and observant, they were merciless and very unlike the God they tried to represent.

Because I never studied the Bible, I didn’t know who the Pharisees were or that they created one of the gospel’s great ironies.

I, like many people, accepted the news peddled by the Pharisees of the 21st century. So each time one of those peddlers got caught stealing money or in a hotel room, I’d gloat and think, “See Christians are hypocrites, therefore Jesus is a fraud.” That is a common but bizarre logical failure, made by people who are clearly not looking at Jesus, but rather at his chronically flawed human followers – even well-intentioned ones like Leroy.

That approach will always deliver cynicism and heartbreak because the Bible doesn’t say a decision to follow Jesus immediately transmutes our bad behavior. In fact, some translations say, once we surrender we are “impregnated” with God’s divine nature. Pregnant women will tell you it takes lots of nausea, bloating and many other things to give birth to a happy baby, but mostly it just takes time.

So are Christians hypocrites? Absolutely. So are Jews and Buddhists and Muslims and Wiccans and Vegetarians and Evolutionists and all the people who call themselves “spiritual not religious.” That’s because hypocrisy is endemic to the human condition. It is a failure, the Bible says, Jesus came specifically to address.