Rich Dixon continues his story

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From last time – how to respond when best intentions still cause hurt feelings?

I don’t know the best response, but here’s what I did: I asked the experts at Project Rescue how they presented the notion of justice. Almost immediately, I understood my mistake.

There’s a difference between how society looks at justice and how followers of Jesus look at justice.

Society ought to hold criminals accountable. Because of corruption, political influence, or lack of education, far too many traffickers operate with impunity. We ought to do what we can to change that. We need better laws, and we need those laws to be strictly enforced.

For victims, this is essential. It’s what I skipped over in my initial discussion, leading to the impression that I wasn’t concerned about individual accountability. Even worse – I inadvertently gave the impression that followers of Jesus shouldn’t care about accountability.

It was unintentional, but no wonder there were hurt feelings.

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I’d like to say this is the only mistake I ever made, the only time my words ever unintentionally hurt someone. It’s not, of course.

Apologize, seek forgiveness, make amends where possible, and move forward, because the mission is too important.

It’s not about me.

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P. S. Society’s version of justice can’t solve the problem of human trafficking. One only needs to examine the endless “war on drugs” to understand.

It’s why Project Rescue does the difficult, long-term work of intervention. When hearts change, systems change, and slowly things are set right.