Danielle Strickland kicked off her Orange Conference 2023 talk speaking about the book, The Non-Anxious Presence by Mark Sayers. He writes that we are between eras. There’s an era-shift we are going through, and there is usually a 50-year gap in between that’s called the gray zone when all the things we’re used to don’t work anymore and the things that could be don’t quite work yet.
At the beginning of the Bible, Danielle pointed out, we see God not creating things with light, but with chaos. The Spirit of God was hovering over the chaotic void, like a mother bird hovering over dark matter, awaiting the point where He will say, “Let there be light.” And that is what God does throughout all of Scripture and still does that in our lives today.
God’s not scared of the dark. He’s not fearful of the chaos. This is not the first time He’s been through an era-shift.
The Gospel of John tells us that Jesus was there in the beginning, and He then brought the light of God, the light of all humanity. And even though the darkness couldn’t understand it, it couldn’t stop it.
As Danielle works to help stop human trafficking, she came across a story of another group also doing this in Japan. They said they had 50 people, plus one (meaning Jesus). And they had this plan to go in to a brothel with a bass drum to drive out the girls. They kept doing this over and over, and they were able to rescue 57 girls in three months. On top of that, the Japanese government was pressured to pass a law that then let 12,000 girls walk out of their brothels.
Danielle then went to Australia for a conference, and she found out a sex convention was going on at the same time. And instead of avoiding it, she asked for a booth at their show, all for the purpose of praying for people and eventually shutting down their industry. Their booth was packed with people asking for prayer. But after an unfortunate photo hit the media, people started asking questions about intent. And Danielle explains she was just trying to step into the dark.
But now the expo leader travels around the world trying to stop human trafficking!
And the emccee of that expo has been planting churches with her husband and feeling called to be a light in the sex industry.
Danielle then asked: How are you being a light in the dark?
Jesus says that we are the light of the world. He hovered over the chaos, and He speaks, and He says we are the plan to bring light into the world.
Shine!
Steve Cullum 