Sunday, January 21, just past, I stood as a ‘silent witness’ on behalf of pre-born children.  Following the advice King Lemuel’s mother gave him,  Proverbs 31:8, I held up a poster that pictured a cute baby sitting among a host of lovely flowers.  The inscription encouraged observers to “Joyfully welcome all priceless little ones with the careful enthusiasm with which we might welcome a garden full of brightly colored, verdantly fragrant and captivatingly beautiful flowers.”

Without expectation, I stood at an intersection of two main roads circuiting through a city near where I live.  A slow day for traffic–probably due to NFL games being played that day–I counted 150 cars whose drivers/passengers gave only a cursory glance in my direction.  Another 22 caught my attention:

12 gave a hearty ‘thumbs up’…

6 honked their horns and smiled in support…

…then…

1 driver turned the corner toward me vigorously shaking their head from side to side in disapproval.

…finally…

3 drivers slowed down, honked, rolled down a window and expressed their consternation toward me with a rude hand gesture.

As I thought about the last three, I wondered why they were so angry.  It had already occurred to me  that some people might be offended by my attempt to awaken their consciences to the reality of what abortion was really all about, but I was a little ‘taken a-back’ by the vigor with which the last three had expressed their frustrations toward me.

“Why so angry?”

Now two weeks later, I think I understand the answer…an answer already alluded to by the Lord in Romans 1:18.  These people were angry because their hearts had already realized the truth about what abortion really was.  They just wanted to suppress that truth.  In reality, their anger was not really aimed at me at all.  It was simply the result of their ‘heartfelt knowledge of the truth colliding with their unwillingness to embrace that truth’.  Their anger was simply the expression of the results of that truth collision.

Next time I stand and ‘speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves’, I’ll be prepared to use the dissenter’s reactions as a reminder to pray the inspired thoughts of 2 Timothy 2:25-26…

“Those who oppose you, you must gently instruct with the hope that God would grant them repentance, leading them to a knowledge of the truth, that they might come to their senses and escape the trap of the enemy who has taken them captive to do his will.”

And I’ll remember God’s counsel to me…

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”   Colossians 3:17