Summertime brings warm weather, sunshine -- even to Vancouver -- and a whole new dynamic around Pigeon Park. A different set of people has appeared on the scene: meaner spirits, slightly better-dressed and groomed; more of a sense that they're there to make scores, rather than because their lives have had a downturn and they have noplace else to go.
Vultures, they are: feeding off the carcases of the barely living (remind me, someone, how "InSite saves lives"?), because they know that, in spite of the fact that they are committing slow, inexorable murder, the police can't do anything about it: they could get busted, make a first appearance, and be cut loose within hours.
It can become daunting at The Lord's Rain, because you wonder if there's ever going to be anything we can do about it. But that's when we have to remind ourselves how we fit into the picture. This is not a flesh-and-blood struggle, but one to be fought by faith in the Spirit against the powers and principalities and spirits of wickedness in high places that Paul writes about (Eph. 6:12), and there's a lot to wrestle against. It also doesn't end: Paul describes it as "wrestling" -- it's not a knock-down, drag-out, punch-up, but ongoing grappling in the Spirit. So while a significant part of my flesh wants to see the police drive through the area with wire-windowed buses, scooping up everybody and sending the users to Treatment Boot Camp and the low-level dealers (spelt S-C-U-M) to Guantanamo Bay with "official" documents linking them to Al Qaeda (why bother with external terrorism when we have drug dealers and lax laws to do it for us?), while rooftop snipers watch out for any who slip through the cracks, I know that's not the real answer.
The real change that's required for people to walk away from drugs and that scene has to come from within, via the Holy Spirit. Keep reaching out to people with the love of Christ -- in spite of all the worldly distractions -- and eventually the message will get through and people will start to find that the drug desire is no longer part of their DNA.
That's our job at The Lord's Rain, and sooner or later, there will be other Missions that reach out in similar ways, because this is not a One Mission Show. Don't expect the world -- secular governments, etc. -- to support this: in the name of "diversity", the world officially denies the Truth, and therefore denies the power of Christ to overcome. So the world keeps trying out these theories -- like "harm reduction" and the laissez-faire attitude towards drugs and fleshly pleasures -- and when they fail, as they have, continue this futile search for truth ... when the Truth is staring them in the face. And as they keep searching, more people's lives are destroyed.
We have to keep reminding ourselves, GREATER IS HE THAT IS IN ME THAN HE THAT IS IN THE WORLD!
And a note to him that is in the world: we're staying.
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