Set the Captives Free

Today I saw the movie Harriet. It’s one of those movies where it’s unfortunate if anyone walks away and the only thing they got from it was two hours of entertainment. It’s based on the life story of Harriet Tubman.

Because of the circumstances she grew up in, Harriet was born a slave. But just because those were the circumstances she was born into, she did not allow herself to adopt the mindset that she had to stay there. One day she decided she no longer wanted to be in bondage. That’s when she committed to do whatever she needed to do to get to a place of freedom. Her tenacity and persistence was extraordinary. She was able to do things others thought were impossible simply because she listened to God, she trusted what He said, and then she did it. She didn’t let fear, fatigue, frustration or being famished stop her from continuing on her journey. Then one day, after enduring a long hard road, she found herself in a place of freedom.

She finally was able to experience things in her life that only free people get to experience. Her life of freedom was remarkably different from her life of bondage. And while she could have nestled in and simply enjoyed her new life, she wasn’t satisfied with just experiencing freedom for herself.  She wanted to help set other people free. And that’s exactly what she did. She took what she learned from finding freedom for herself and went back to help others that probably would have never found freedom on their own.

We need to choose to be spiritual Harriets. We need to do our part to help as many people as we can find freedom. But in today’s society, we make so many excuses. We think we need a platform or a ministry or certain resources or this amount of money or that number of followers before we can help even one person be free. If Harriet had made all the excuses we make today, she may have never helped anyone find freedom. She simply started out doing what she could do on her own. Then, as she helped people find freedom with what she had, others began helping her to bring even more people to a place of freedom.

Unfortunately, not everyone wants to be free. Even though it pained her, Harriet could not get her very own sister to do what was necessary to get out of bondage. This is where so many of us get stuck. We try to help someone and they never get to a place of freedom. So, we give up and never attempt to help anyone else ever again. But sometimes we have to be willing to admit that we want people to be free more than they want freedom for themselves. Until they get to the place where they want it for themselves and are willing to do the work necessary, no matter how hard we try they will remain in bondage. I believe this is something Harriet understood and is the reason why she never lost anyone along the way. She was wise enough to only help lead those to freedom who desperately wanted to be free.

So many of God’s children today are in various kinds of bondage and desperately desire to be free but don’t have anyone willing to show them the way. Don’t sit back and enjoy your freedom without going back to help someone else find theirs. Make a decision today to help set the captives free.

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