Created to be courageous, compassionate participants in the story of God’s redemption in and among His creation, we can smile at the future regardless of circumstance. We know Who directs the future. And because we have received healing of past pain, we bandage the wounds of every hurting man, woman, and child we meet with love.
That was the story of Harriett Tubman, born into slavery.
She spoke of a fierce love that drove her to risk her life 19 times to transport hundreds of slaves through danger and peril across the Canadian border to freedom, crying out to the darkness,
“If I be free, they be free!”
This is a love born by the Spirit of God, and not of will or reason. To believe that the call before us is more important than life itself, to desire to help build a better future for the countless ones who do not know the way of escape. These are the hallmarks of our Savior. He could not leave earth to go to the glory of heaven without first making sure that we could also be there. Harriet could not be free until everyone she could take with her was free.
The courage of Harriet Tubman was truly conceived in prayer. She spoke later in life to say,
“It wasn’t me, it was the Lord! I always told Him, ‘I trust to you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,’ and He always did.”
“Courage is conceived in prayer and birthed in the moment of need.”
With all the ugliness of abuse of Harriet Tubman’s story of slavery, there is yet so much more beauty. Her personal courage transferred to hundreds of slaves and then an entire nation as the run to freedom became the Underground Railroad, aided by lovers of freedom across thousands of miles. Tenacity was a promise she gave on every crossing telling Frederick Douglas, “I never lost a slave.” The years did not stop her fight, and we know that her acts of courage must have been in the mind of President Abraham Lincoln as he issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”
What a day for our nation and for generations to come. When we pray together, we are praying for freedom not only of the body, but also of the mind and soul. We pray that hearts would be changed from bondage in sin to freedom in Christ. And we must never forget that the work upon our knees is the work Jesus requested of us: “Our Father in heaven may your name be kept holy….May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Brother Andrew, known in history as “God’s Smuggler,” said,
“God invites us to influence our community, our nation, and the world—to literally direct history while we’re on our knees.”
For Harriet Tubman, courage, love, and passion took strength from hate. Not hate for people but hatred of slavery. “Never wound a snake,” she said. “Kill it.”
This trinity should live in all of us:
- Courage conceived in prayer and birthed in the moment of need.
- Love bountifully and unconditionally received in redemption and poured back out in abundance.
- A hatred of sin, never of people. That we would confess our sin, meaning to agree with God about it. To hate it as He hates it. To kill the snake.
Let us pray as Harriett did,
“And I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight,
and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.”
Strength to fight for the enslaved who cannot cross to freedom on their own. To keep believing in peace when others have given up. To keep on praying for rivers of grace to flow healing throughout our nation.
In whatever way the Lord leads, to whomever, you meet or know along the way, speak of love, speak of grace. We are the redeemed who bring the Good News.
“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”
Always Expect Amazing,
Diane Strack
SLOL Founder and President
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