Your Turn

In 1787, a 28-year-old member of the British Parliament sat down and wrote in his journal: "God Almighty has set before me two great objects: the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners." He wasn't a preacher. He wasn't a general. He was a sickly, unremarkable looking politician named William Wilberforce, and he'd just decided to spend the rest of his life fighting one of the most entrenched, profitable systems of oppression in human history.

He didn't have Twitter. He didn't have a platform to broadcast his outrage to millions with one tap. What he had was a bill he introduced to Parliament. And it was voted down. Then another. And another. For twenty years he kept introducing it. He built coalitions, gathered evidence from ship captains, funded investigations, lost friends, lost his health, and absorbed public ridicule from people who profited handsomely off the status quo. It took until 1833, the year he died for slavery to be abolished throughout the British Empire.

Forty-six years. One man. Refusing to just talk about it.

"For every official is under orders from higher ups, and matters of justice get lost in red tape and bureaucracy. Even the king milks the land for his own profit!" (Ecclesiastes 5: 8-9) 

Wilberforce lived in a system that looked a lot like the one described in Ecclesiastes. Every official under orders from higher up. Justice tangled in red tape and bureaucracy built to protect it. The powerful profiting while the powerless got crushed underneath. Solomon tells us: "Don't be surprised". This is just how broken systems work, generation after generation, until cowards step aside and the brave take action.

Ecclesiastes doesn't tell us to shrug and scroll past it. It tells us to see it clearly, for what it is. Then Wilberforce shows us what to do: you see it, and you go do something about it for as long as it takes.

We live in a moment where outrage is free and instant. A repost takes two seconds. A strongly worded comment feels like action. But Wilberforce didn't get twenty years of momentum from outrage. He got it from showing up to the same fight, year after year, long after it stopped feeling satisfying.

Where have you mistaken talking about a problem for actually doing something about it?

Pick one injustice or need you've only posted about, prayed about, or complained about, and take one concrete, unglamorous step toward it this week. Not a statement. An action.

Trade your outrage for obedience. Don't settle for saying something when you're called to do something. Don't wait for someone else. It's your turn.