In “The One Year Book of Amazing Stories,” Robert Peterson tells the story of Michael, a young man whose dreams were destined to change the world.
Any honest person knew a Southern black baby would not be given a fair chance. Despite that, Michael’s preacher father believed the boy was a gift from God. That he began college at age 15 shows his giftedness.
Although Michael was blessed with great talent, he was not exempt from the South’s rampant racism. When a white friend invited him over to play, the child’s mother chased him away and screamed at her son for bringing a “colored boy” home.
Experiences like this one eventually prompted Michael to decide his father’s God was not his God. He wrote the Bible off as a myth and decided to quit attending church.
When he announced he would attend seminary, almost everyone was shocked.
However, Michael was not destined to become a typical pastor. He used his intelligence and faith to attack the racism of the old South. He organized bus boycotts and peaceful protests to change the segregation and racial hatred of his day.
When bigoted sheriffs unleashed police dogs on protestors, he taught his followers to respond by saying, “Throw us in jail, and we will still love you… Beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer.”
By 1963, many of his followers began leaving him to follow more militant groups with slogans like “Burn, baby! Burn!”
Michael felt like he had hit rock bottom when he was thrown into the Birmingham City Jail. While there he had time to reread the Bible he had once dismissed as a myth. As he studied the letters written by the jailed Apostle Paul, he realized that his hope did not rest primarily on how much he could love others, but on how much Jesus loved him, and he experienced something of a conversion.
The violent police response to his peaceful protests gradually moved the public to greater support for him and the African American community involved in his battle against oppression. He was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Although the name Michael appeared on his birth certificate, by the time Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, he had arguably become the most influential agent of change in America.
God used the terrible things that happened to king to change the world.
Scripture puts it this way, “and we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (Romans 8:28, NLT)
The Bible never suggests that bad things are not bad. However, scripture and King’s story demonstrate that God can use the most questionable things in our lives to accomplish things that are unquestionably good.
Tim Richards grew up in Fairdealing and previously served as associate pastor of Pilgrim’s Rest Church there. He currently serves as a pastor on the staff of Concord Church in South County St. Louis.