ADs October Devotional

Passionate or Passive, How is your Life’s Message?

August 28, 2013 marked the 50^th anniversary of a speech destined to change a nation.   Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” discourse was being shaped a few days prior to the event by a group of trusted friends, including Dr. Clarence Benjamin (Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech That Transformed a Nation).  Benjamin suggested the idea of a transaction in a bank.  “We’re coming here after the Emancipation Proclamation after all this time, to redeem a note from the signers of the Declaration of Independence.”  With the weight of the civil rights movement on his shoulders, Dr. King started methodically to deliver his message using this carefully crafted language.  From the crowd, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouted out, “Tell ‘em about the dream, Martin.  Tell ‘em about the dream.”  Benjamin writes, “I saw him take the written text and hold it to the left side and look out at the more than 250,000 people.   Seeing this, I said to somebody, ‘These people don’t know it, but they’re ready to go to church.’”  Benjamin continues, “It was as if some cosmic force had come down…it was not so much the profoundness of the content.   It was the way he delivered it with such extraordinary passion.”   Passion.  It reached into the souls of the crowd that day, ignited a dream and changed a nation.   Passion and dreams often walk hand in hand.  Every great dream begins with a dreamer.   Are you still dreaming?  As a missionary, how is your life’s passion quota?   Passionate or passive?   “I now remind you to stir up that inner fire which God gave you at your ordination.” Timothy 1:6 J.B. Phillips.   God has big dreams yet to be fulfilled.   Stay broken in His Presence and He will increased your passion quota.