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This one should keep us thinking:
This is a true story of something that happened
just a few years ago at USC.
There was a professor of philosophy
there who was a deeply committed atheist. His primary goal for one
required class was to spend the entire semester to prove that God
couldn’t exist. His students were always afraid to argue with him
because of his impeccable logic. Sure, some had argued in class at
times, but no one had ever really gone against him because of his
reputation. At the end of every semester on the last day, he would say
to his class of 300 students, “If there is anyone here who still
believes in Jesus, stand up!” In Twenty Years, no one had ever stood
up. They knew what he was going to do next. He would say, “Because
anyone who believes in God is a fool, “If God existed, he could stop
this piece of chalk from hitting the ground and breaking… such a simple
task to prove that He is God, and yet He can’t do it.” And every year,
he would drop the chalk onto the tile floor of the classroom. And it
would shatter into a hundred pieces. All of the students would do
nothing but stop and stare. Most of the students thought that God
couldn’t exist. Certainly, a number of Christians had slipped through,
but for 20 years, they had been too afraid to stand up.
Well, a few years ago there was a freshman who
happened to enroll. He was a Christian and had heard the stories about
his professor. He was required to take the class for his major, and he
was afraid. But for three months that semester, he prayed every morning
that he would have the courage to stand up no matter what the professor
said, or what the class thought. Nothing they said could ever shatter
his faith… he hoped.
Finally the day came. The professor said, “If
anyone still believes in Jesus, stand up!” The professor and the
class of 300 people looked at him, shocked, as he stood up at the back
of the classroom. The professor shouted, “You FOOL! If God existed,
he would keep this piece of chalk from breaking when it hit the
ground!” He proceeded to drop the chalk, but as he did, it slipped out
of his fingers, off his shirt cuff, onto the pleat of his pants, down
his leg and off his shoe. As it hit the ground, it simply rolled away
unbroken.
The professor’s jaw dropped as he
stared at the chalk. He looked up at the young man, and then ran out of
the lecture hall. The young man, who had stood, proceeded to walk to
the front of the room and shared his faith in Jesus for the next half
hour. 300 students stayed and listened as he told of God’ love for them
and of his power through Jesus.
You have two choices;
1. Pretend you never read this
2. Pass this along to your Christian and
non-Christian friends, giving them encouragement we all need every day.
When you choose option 2, you have chosen to STAND
UP.
One person who
lived this message to its fullest actually chose to sit down.
Rosa Parks was tired, so tired that
she decided to take the bus home. Her feet hurt and her back and
shoulders ached. The first bus that came past had standing room only,
so she decided to wait for the next bus in hopes of getting a seat.
During her wait, she remembered why she often walked home- riding the
bus took a toll on her dignity.
The segregation laws in force in 1955
Montgomery, Alabama, seem unbelievable today, but they were a reality
for thousands of blacks in the south. Take the restrictions on riding
the bus, for instance, Even though the majority of bus passengers were
people of color, the front four rows of seats were always reserved for
white customers. It was common to see people standing in the back of the
bus while the first four rows remained empty. Behind the
reserved-for-whites section was a middle section where African-Americans
could sit if the seats were not needed by white customers. If just one
white customer, however, needed a seat in this center section, all those
already seated had to move.
Even getting on the bus was an
elaborate process for black people. They would pay their fare in the
front, exit, and then reboard the bus at the back. Rosa died a little
each time she found herself face-to-face with this kind of
discrimination. In fact, Rosa had once been thrown off a bus for
refusing to reboard at the back door.
Finally a second bus came, and to
Rosa’s joy, there were a few seats available in the middle section-
“no-man’s land”. Rosa climbed the stairs, put her dime in the fare box,
climbed back down the stairs, hurried to the back door of the bus,
climbed up the stairs, and made it through the aisle in time to find
there was still a seat available. She sat down in the row just behind
the white section. What a relief to relax for a minute!
The bus picked up more riders and the front
section of the bus filled up. When the driver noticed a white man
standing in the aisle, he ordered four people, including Rosa, to give
up their seats. At first no one moved.
The bus driver said, “You all better make
it light on yourselves and give me those seats.” The other three riders
did as they were told, but Rosa knew that to do so would be wrong- and
she quietly refused to get up. “I’m gunna call the police,” the bus
driver threatened.
“Go ahead and call them,” said Rosa. She
was tired, true-but even more, she was tired of giving in. It wasn’t
just the bus. It was the “whites only” restaurants, the drinking
fountains and elevators marked “colored,” and the unspoken intimidation
that were all a part of daily life in a place that did not treat all its
citizens as equals. Rosa remembered, “I was tired of seeing so many men
treated as boys and not called by their names or proper titles. I was
tired of seeing children and women mistreated and disrespected because
of the color of their skin. I was tired of legally enforced racial
segregation. I thought of the pain and the years of oppression and
mistreatment that my people had suffered… Fear was the last thing I
thought of that day. I put my trust in the Lord for guidance and help
to endure whatever I had to face. I knew I was sitting in the right
seat.”
Rosa later wrote, “I felt the presence of
God on the bus and heard His quiet voice as I sat there waiting for the
police to take me to the station. There were people on the bus that knew
me, but no one said a word to help or encourage me. I was lonely, but I
was at peace. The voice of God told me that He was at my side.”
-Mac, Toby, and
Michael Tait. Under God. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House, 2004.
63-64.
REFLECTION
God calls each and
every one of us to live confidently in his love. While remaining firm in
your belief may not be the easiest or the most popular thing to do, it
is definitely the most Christ-like.
To follow in Jesus’
footsteps is to meet opposition with great dignity.
PRAYER
“Lord, give us the
ability to hear your ‘quiet voice’, and the strength to obey it."
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