Sharing Our Stories: A Call to Repentance

Shared Responsibility and Repentance
A devotional by Stephanie Bankhead

“I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.” 

– Daniel 9:4-5 (ESV)

My ancestors emigrated from Italy to the United States. I am a fourth generation American on both sides of my family. They earned a living farming in northeastern Colorado. 

My ancestors knew what it was like to be the brunt of prejudice. In the early 1900’s it was not unusual for Italians to hear mocking ethnic slurs like "wop" and "dago." To my knowledge, we never owned slaves.

Blindly, I believed that I had nothing to apologize for relating to racial tension. My relatives didn't take part in the Atlantic slave trade nor the owning of slaves. Why should I apologize? 

Recently I was reading the book of Deuteronomy. In chapter 31, Moses is telling the people that he knows how rebellious and stubborn they are. Reading that my thoughts jump to, “Hey that's not fair! It was their ancestors who did those things, not this group of people. All those complainers from the exodus are all dead, this is a brand new generation.”

That was the beginning of the collapse of my alleged innocence. Pouring through the Scriptures, it became obvious that God demands we take responsibility for national sin. There are many examples of similar situations like we read in the Bible books of Daniel and Deuteronomy.

We in America have sinned. We have not acknowledged nor admitted that we have and continue to place people in positions of status and importance. And as long as we are the ones on the winning end of the balance, we refuse to see the sin. As Christians, how can we read Paul's letter to the Galatian Church and allow this sin to continue?

God’s Word (The Holy Bible) says in Galatians 3:28 (ESV),“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

God's Word ushers in conviction and I know in my heart this is true. So what is my next right move? Where can I start?

I'm perusing books, watching movies, reading novels about and by the Black community to gain their perspective. I want to understand. And I desire the dismantling of the heinous crime of oppression.

I also apologize to my dear friend, a woman of color, for the struggles that she and her ancestors and her children have had to navigate. Admitting that I have disregarded the white privilege that epitomizes my life. Offering my time weekly to listen and gain an understanding of her life as a Black woman. My plan is to do more of this, to increase our meeting to add more people. It is my belief that as we get to know each other’s stories, our empathy and love toward one another will grow.

Now, like Daniel, my heart asks of the Lord forgiveness for our nation's sin of oppression. I include myself. We have plundered our brothers and sisters of color. We categorize people by social status and power. We are not at all living Paul's admonition in Galatians 3:28.

Imagine a world where all God's children were flourishing. No oppression. No hatred. No privilege for one people to the detriment of another. We can have hope for that world. God wants us to see with our eyes. We must look into the eyes of Black people and see the pain of their ancestors residing in their souls. 

God wants us to understand with our hearts that He loves all people. He created everyone in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27) God wants us to turn, repent from our previous sin of oppression and hatred. And He will heal us. (Isaiah 6:10; John 12:40)

Let’s pray: O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. Heal our nation. In Jesus’s Name we pray, Amen!

~*~
Author Bio:

Stephanie Bankhead is a Bible teacher, mentor and author of several Bible studies. 

Stephanie has worked at a local church as the Women’s Ministry Leader since 2013. In 2018 she became an ordained Teaching Pastor. Before that, she worked as the director of a very successful youth volleyball club. 

What both of these experiences taught her is that women are still little girls inside. Deep down we are all still asking the same questions, “Am I capable? Am I attractive? Am I enough?”

Stephanie delivers sermons and speaks at women’s events on a multitude of topics. Her favorite topic is teaching people what the Bible says about their own identity in God.

Stephanie lives in Amarillo, Texas with her husband of 32 years. They have a rescue pup who barks too much, and a bird abandoned when her two grown children flew the nest. Her four grandchildren are the apples of her eye.

A Devotional about Togetherness

People Getting Along With People
A devotional by Jo Huddleston

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” –Matthew 7:12 (NIV)

We have seen America reel under unthinkable occurrences most wouldn’t have imagined could ever grace our history pages. Much of the good and the bad in our country springs from relationships between people.

We don’t all think alike; nor come from similar backgrounds that influence our actions; nor hold the same principles that govern our lifestyle. Differences are a distinguishing characteristic between people.

Differences tend to set us apart. We hold differing opinions on many issues and get excited about different things and cling to different values and virtues.

In light of all our differences, seeing eye-to-eye with everybody becomes a difficult task. Something is needed or else we could never get along with many folks. Yes, something has to be done to the hard, dry soil of personalities before a right relationship can exist between people.

The Bible tells a parable of the farmer, a sower of seeds (Matthew 13:1-10). Some of the seeds he planted fell along the path where the birds ate them. Some seeds fell on rocky places with little soil where they could not form adequate root systems and they died. Other seeds landed among thorns and were choked up by them. Finally, other seeds fell on good soil where they produced a fine crop.

Getting along with people can be likened to those seeds the farmer planted. All kinds of obstacles lie along the way to good human relationships. The rocky places and thorns are the differences we have.

In such cases, we must prepare the soil of differences so that we can realize a bumper crop of harmony and goodwill. The highest priority of preparation would be to put aside selfish desires. Putting other people first, loving one another. It’s all a thing of the heart.

Getting all these relationships correct is not easy. Just as farming is not easy. But following an unsuccessful crop, the farmer doesn’t quit. He goes out the next time, prepares the soil and plants again, striving toward that abundant, bumper crop.

Yes, the preparation indeed is often as important as the actual deed that is achieved. May we all continue preparing our hearts for a moral and ethical brotherhood of all people.

Embracing excellence, enthusiasm, courage, and compassion promises a wholesome outlook for America. The task will require generous measures of each of these principles, especially that of faith. America can shed her apathy and aim for a better today and greater tomorrows. She can submit to a divine purifying process and emerge a stronger, united country possessing these healing attributes.

I pray America chooses to turn toward her founding fathers’ worthy design for this nation.

~*~
Author Bio: 

Jo Huddleston is a multi-published author who writes novels inspired by her fascination with the 1950s and her love of her native American South. Novels in her endearing Caney Creek series, her West Virginia Mountains series, as well as her stand-alone release, Tidewater Summer, are sweet Southern romance novels.

Her writing career includes more than 200 articles and short stories, which have appeared in over 50 well-known Christian and secular publications including Guideposts and Decision. She's an online contributor to Christian Devotions Ministries.

Jo’s devotions appear in eight anthologies and she wrote devotions on assignment and freelance for the following daily devotionals: Devotions, Open Windows, Pathways to God, The Quiet Hour, The Secret Place, and The Upper Room.

She is a member of the Literary Hall of Fame at Lincoln Memorial University (TN), and holds a M.Ed. degree from Mississippi State University. Visit Jo online at this address, www.johuddleston.com.