...like slavery
Our church (www.WestchesterChapel.org) is one of four congregations that use a single building. We’re there Saturday evenings. Upon arriving to set up yesterday we were greeted by two women from the Brazilian fellowship who were the last to leave after their service. They led us to this fawn, which was clearly breathing, but it didn’t seem able to get up. We called animal control, who informed us they don’t handle wild animals, but they would make some calls. We prayed for the little fellow and went in to set up.
After the service the fawn was gone.
Not sure how the Lord answered our prayers, but we’re blessed that He did!
As I’ve been preparing my SuperCentennial Celebration monologues the miracle of abolition keeps coming up. Of course 250 years ago we have to look at it from the other side. Two grievances in the Declaration of Independence hinted at how Britain was striking down laws allowing colonies to release their slaves. In Thomas Jefferson’s original draft, he was much more overt:
“[King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.”
He continues with language that needs interpretation to our modern minds. This is how I do it in the monologue:
“I went on to write how every law passed by our people to set the slaves free was stricken down by King George. Sadly Georgia and South Carolina delegates refused to sign the Declaration unless I took that out.“
Pro-slavery advocates used this #ScriptureInTheNight to point out how Paul was returning a slave to his master, but the Christians who were advocating abolition like Frederick Douglass and William Wilberforce were using it to push back against the dehumanization that was keeping people in chains, showing they can have eternal life and the Holy Spirit living within them.
I wrote more about this in my article, "Our Founders Wanted to Abolish Slavery."
What follows is from my #WhatScriptureSaysAboutLove series, which is explained at www.RichDrama.com/blog/post/WhatScriptureSaysAboutLove. I typically post this series on my Instagram page, but this post was too long for Instagram:
אָהֵב [ʾāhēb] v.
171/202
“Be joyful with Jerusalem and rejoice for her, all you who love her;
Be exceedingly glad with her, all you who mourn over her,
— Isaiah 66:10 NAS95
What a perfect passage for Israel Day!
Lord, set Your Chosen People whom we love free from the rising antisemitism around the world and in our city of New York. We pray protection on all marching in the Israel Day Parade today.
