A slave serving her Master

"Be ready in season and out of season."

2 Timothy 4:2

Catherine Williams (later Ferguson) was a slave, living in New York City in the late 1700s.  She is famous for having begun a Sunday School for orphans and enslaved children, while she was yet a slave herself. 

She had had the idea for a long time, and when the time came for it to become a reality, she went to her pastor and asked for his help in making it happen.  But as the two of them planned the steps necessary ~ finding a building, obtaining the supplies, etc. ~ she paused, wondering how she would ever get her master to agree to allow her to do this.    He had owned her for her entire life, and had not been happy when she became a Christian, or when she expressed a desire to learn to read, that she might read the Bible for herself.   He felt these efforts were presumptuous, not knowing “her place”.

As I read of her concern over whether he’d give his permission, I immediately wondered why God didn’t orchestrate it so that her master granted her freedom?  Wouldn’t that make a great story?  A slave who becomes a Christian, despite her master’s reluctance, vows to open a school to teach slave children about Jesus, and miraculously, her master softens his crusty, self-righteous heart, and frees her to make her dream a reality??

Yeah... no.

Catherine Ferguson began her school despite being a slave.  With her master’s reluctant permission.    And I suppose that even though he didn’t free her, it was a miracle that he allowed her to teach.  But it would have been so easy for God to say the word, and free her. 

And while I pondered for the umpteenth time why God does what He does, it occurred to me how often He expects us to act, when we have a good reason not to.  Catherine Ferguson had a good reason to wait.  To say that God was calling her to open a school ~ sometime in the future.  I’ve done it.  You’ve done it.  And sometimes it’s true.  Sometimes He plants an idea in our heads, or gives us a calling long before it's time to make it happen.  

That's how it was for Moses.  In Exodus chapter two, Moses saw and Egyptian beating a Hebrew, and killed the Egyptian for it.  The call was right ~ deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians ~ but the timing was too soon. 

That's how it was for Joseph, too.  He correctly interpreted the dream that predicted that his brothers would bow down to him, but he was years ~ and six chapters ~ too soon.

We, on the other hand, sometimes have a tendency to wait.  To not do what we can do for Him and His people until we feel "readier".  Until we graduate.  Until our kids are in school.  Until we're through this trial.  But today's verse is about being ready.  The time is now.  If He's calling you to do something, you have no business interposing your timetable in the discussion.  It might be sooner.  It might be later.  But it will be in His perfect timing.  So be ready.