A few years back, at an old Spanish ranch in California, I took a picture of a millstone. It was an enormous, heavy stone circle, and I marveled at its magnitude.
I thought of that picture again a few weeks ago, when I traveled with Blackbox International to the Dominican Republic. I played with the boys in the home there, folding paper airplanes and laughing when their planes flew and mine crashed. The boys teased and played, and I loved every second. I silently thanked God for setting them free.
And all at once, I remembered that millstone.
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in Me—to stumble,” said Jesus, “it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).
The unspeakable abuse that our boys endured at the hands of wicked men robbed them of their innocence and left them with hurts too deep for words. They’ve been deceived and traumatized physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. By God’s grace and power, the boys will heal, but to this point, the evils committed against them have left them in bondage—and susceptible to stumbling.
I threw my paper plane again and pictured that giant rock around the necks of the perpetrators.
“It would be better, indeed,” I thought.
And that’s why Blackbox exists. Not for “millstone justice” against the wicked—ultimately, that’s up to the Lord himself, who takes hurts against His children very personally. We exist for merciful justice and blessing on behalf of the boys, remembering that ultimately “our struggle is not against flesh and blood” perpetrators, but against the enemy himself (Ephesians 6:12). Blackbox takes boys the enemy came to “steal, kill and destroy,” and offers them abundant life in Christ (John 10:10).
We exist for freedom—freedom from millstones, freedom from bondage and stumbling, freedom from deception and death. Freedom to throw paper airplanes and laugh and tease and play. Freedom to become the men that God intended.
Because “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).