Fearlessly Courageous
Desk of Dennis Piller
12/1/2021
If you could help change the world … would you?
As I started my quiet time today, I saw today’s heading and it challenged my small-mindedness of who I am in the world. How often have we thought, or acted out, the notion of what can one do, I am only one person? I too often have found myself siloed in my own world of needs and wants that I think I don’t have time, or the skill to do something worthwhile. What can I do? What cause might I take up? I am up to my eyes in alligators now…I have no time.
I know that when we are in enough pain we will make changes. I know that suffering causes a motivation for people to make radical life changes. Why does it take such catastrophic happenings to get us to move off the couch of our lives?
I started looking at a few people who came to mind and the influence they had on the world. Most started off with a simple act of desperation or defiance. These were not huge figures born for the stage of life. There were ordinary people like you and me. We too are influencers and it starts in our homes, with our grown children, our neighbors, and friends. Our Church, a mission field, or a Saturday church group that goes out once a month to help a single mom or an elderly couple or feeding the homeless. It begins with a heart for God and what he can do to change your world however small it is…through you.
Tired from a full day’s work, Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery bus on December 1, 1955 and forever became one of the inspirational people who changed the world. When she refused to obey the driver’s order to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus so a white person could sit there, she was arrested for civil disobedience. Parks’ act of defiance, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott that followed, are recognized as pivotal moments in the civil rights movement.
When account manager Todd Beamer and the other passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 realized their plane had been seized by terrorists, they worked quickly and courageously to reclaim control. Flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania,
After her 13-year-old daughter was killed by a repeat DWI offender, Candy Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in her home on March 7, 1980.
William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
Slave owners were making themselves incredibly wealthy while ordinary people enjoyed cheap goods arriving from the Americas. It was a whole system that brought benefits to many vested interests but at such a terrible human cost.
As many as 12.5 million slaves were forcibly transported to the Americas.
Wilberforce faced an insurmountable challenge to take on these powerful interests. He tried to get a law change through parliament ending the slave trade. And despite constant setbacks and personal illness he persevered. All the while spurred on by his deep Christian conviction.
Eventually, that change came in 1807 with the eradication of the slave trade. This was followed by the abolition of slavery some twenty-six years later.
Inspired like the great prophets of the Hebrew scriptures, he protested against the moral travesty of his age until he saw justice done. We would do well to heed his example. “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” Amos 5:24.
Christian Führer (1943-2014) Pastor
At the height of the Cold War in East Germany, Christian Führer led a tiny group of believers. In 1982, they began to meet and pray every Monday night in the historic town church of Nikolaikirche, Leipzig. His numbers, to begin with, were so small that the authorities chose only to have those attending under constant police surveillance.
However, a significant change occurred when in October 1989 numbers that were normally a few hundred had now swelled to 70,000 dissenters. The peace prayer gathering had become the major focal point for protest against the regime.
The wall came tumbling down.
Buoyed by the attention of the Western media and a police state surprised by the level of protest, numbers surged to 320,000. No one dared respond with violence. And with the resignation of GDR leader Erich Honecker, the regime began to implode from within. Pressure from the protests made the collapse of the Berlin wall all but inevitable.
That church, through the heart of a few praying believers, becomes a place for prayer and hope. The faithful witness of pastors like Christian Führer ensured God’s peace was present when there was little hope for change.
Their prayerful act and witness inspired a protest movement that would become a defining moment of the 20th Century.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the ending of the Cold War.
Never underestimate the power of dedicated, disciplined prayer. The public act and moral purpose of their prayer were what eventually inspired a town to follow their example and topple a regime in a miraculous, bloodless fashion.
If we followed their example too, what walls would we see tumbling down? “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20.
You are not insignificant. God wants to use the gifts he has given you to influence those around you. Your church is a great place to begin. Just by getting involved, praying, making yourself available to use your legs and your hands will take you on a journey that will change the lives of the people you touch. It will also change you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA4Hdqq-zrI&list=RDMM
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