On the Shoulders of GiantsNäide

Go Without Doubt

“What are you doing here, Elijah?” -1 Kings 19:13

Some people laughed behind her back. Her down-home speech and country ways made her seem to some the least person to inspire and help lead a Freedom Summer movement that changed a nation in 1964. But the civil rights folk hero held audiences rapt with the one thing that mattered to her most: her undoubting answer to God’s calling: I will go.

Thus, Fannie Lou Hamer went. Where? To register to vote, along with some 17,000 others, even though it cost them and only 1,600 registrations were accepted. To jail, in the face of attacks and the murders of fellow civil rights volunteers. To end-of-the-road shacks, carrying the message of voter freedom to poor Blacks and Whites, her passion drawing gunfire by night riders.

Hamer said, “I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d have been a little scared—but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember.”

Her brave clarity models the answer the Lord invites of us when He asks—as He inquired of His prophet, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:13).

It’s a question for all seeking to serve God. What are you doing here? Is this your rightful ministry or work?

Patricia Raybon

May we hear Him, as our heroes did, and answer without a doubt.

When You ask for my service, Lord, may I hear Your calling, then go without a doubt.