Divine Responsibility

There seems to be a hatred for slavery connected to December 6 – the day I was born. While I was bawlin’ for somebody to turn out the lights, 570 miles east of me, a young black man – a Christian by the name of James Meredith – looked at his hands and saw the color red. He’d just been shot.

An American veteran, Meredith, almost died that day in 1966. A white sniper thought he deserved to die for trying to go to college. He was the first black student admitted to the University of Mississippi, a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement.

Motivated by his faith and sense of duty, Meredith stood his ground, lived to be an old man, and saw his son, Joseph, graduate from the University of Mississippi with a doctorate. He said, “Nobody hand-picked me. I believed, and believe now, that I have a divine responsibility…”

On that same day, 101 years earlier, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery was officially adopted as law. Lincoln once said, “Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man’s nature. Opposition to it is his love of justice.”

Yes, human slavery is wrong, so why didn’t Jesus abolish it? Because that’s our job. We invented it. You see, He came to destroy a much worse, eternal form of slavery to sin, death, and Satan. As free people who love justice because our God is just, you and I have a divine responsibility. Break every chain!