It’s past the time to get into the game-but it’s not too late!
“For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” Ester 4:14 (NASB)
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
This morning while getting dressed for work, I thought about one of the greatest football coaches I know, Coach Joe Redmond.
Coach Redmond was great to me, and he is still alive, not only because of his ability to coach, teach and lead with his knowledge of the game; he was a great motivator for getting his players and supporting cast to believe that they can accomplish anything if they only believe.
That belief came in the form of a scripture. I remember very well when I first heard him use it in the locker room of a game at Lockhart Stadium. We were losing the game and the players were a-bout to give up. Coach Redmond, with tears in his eyes, sweat dripping from his brow as he paced in the circle of players and coaches. He said in what appeared to me as a cry to heaven as he looked up then straight into the eyes of his players and cried out, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” He repeated it again and again until it resounded in a reverberating chant that filled that locker room as God Him-self had allowed His Holy Spirit to descend upon everybody that was there! It felt so good that I grabbed a player and told him, “Take off your uniform and give it to me cause I wanna play.”
It is with this same fervent zeal that we must address the issues that are crippling and incapacitating our people today by those who are “playing” the role of Pharaoh, who refused to let God’s people go.
The nine plagues that broke Pharaoh or released the people to become, to some degree, free to be equal citizens but Pharaoh’s heart was never softened.
This looks a lot like conditions of today under the iron clad hearts of some of our leadership and some of those who are vying for the leadership of this country.
Their hearts are incased in graphene which is a material 200 times stronger than iron which houses institutionalize racism.
Instead of the nine plagues that forced Pharaoh then to “Let My people go”, we are confronted with nine new plagues which have been imposed by Pharaoh wanna bes; police brutally, voter disenfranchisements, health care disparities, inadequate legal representation, attacks on Black women, educational disparity, unemployment, overpopulated prison system with Black people.
Where are our compassionate leaders to include those who LOOK LIKE US?
When we don’t come to the salvaging of the penurious, the wronged and the disillusioned, we have just placed ourselves in harm’s way, of becoming that which we are trying to avoid.
If we do not get involved from a position of helping, we are just as guilty as and even more so than the Pharaohs who are imposing the unjust oppression of people.
“God I thank you for making me ready to do Your will, for just a time such as this. Amen.”
IF YOU ARE NOT READY, DON’T WORRY, GOD WILL MAKE YOU READY.
