"Enable me to have a single eye and a simple heart, desiring to please God, to do good to my fellow creatures and to testify my gratitude to my adorable Redeemer" was one of his simple prayers. God used this Englishman to change the world. I trust you also have a prayer that calls you to a purpose far larger than just existing. In his song "What can one person do?" Rob Frazier tells of single missionaries who reached China and a nun named Theresa who impacted Calcutta. Catheryn Reynolds once offered the Smithsonian a $38 million grant for an exhibit entitled "The Spirit of America" It celebrated the contributions of 100 great individuals. The museum declined. Rupert Cornwell reported in The Independent that the staff's main complaint was that the exhibit focussed on individuals rather than groups.
The odds might be great but with a heart united by a simple prayer and a sense of God's call to persevere there's no telling what one person, a person like you, might accomplish. This month it will be 215 years ago that our 28 year old hero penned these words in his diary: "God Almighty has set before me two great objectives, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the reformation of (morals)" He was a sickly man. His spine was curved and he walked with much pain. In early years he was much influenced by the Methodists. Their Wesleyan message was: devotion to God and social conscience. At university, keen on politics, he befriended William Pitt, England's youngest ever prime minister. William Wilberforce was elected to the House of Commons representing Hull after spending a small fortune to defeat a powerful opponent.
At 25 he surrendered his life to Christ and became a radiant Christian. William diarised those words after being approached by Lady Middleton, to use his power as an MP oppose the slave trade. There are times God wants to use your friends to give you direction in life. Keep listening. You'll get the message. A cause beckons. Embrace it.
Talk about "mission impossible"! In 1783 and in 1787 Quakers who formed the Society for the Abolition of Slavery had presented petitions to parliament. They were soundly defeated. After a long bout of illness Wilberforce rose in the house to make his first speech against slavery in May 1789. He was scoffed at and rejected. He followed that up with bills to end the slave trade. For 17 years he was defeated in each attempt. The newspapers jeered at him. The wealthy threatened him. Many pulpits misunderstood his efforts. An adversary said "He has an enthusiastic spirit which is so far from yielding that it grows more vigorous from blows." That single-minded prayer sustained him. Prayer can do that for you too. Is your cause noble? God is listening.
The road to victory may be long; perhaps much longer than even you could fear. Two decades after the words went into his diary William Wilberforce, now almost deformed sat weeping in the parliament as his colleagues rose to applaud the positive vote on legislation to outlaw the slave trade. Some of his tears were for the many that would remain shackled in slavery all over the world. Even in England the law only meant an end to the slave trade. He accepted that at this time slaves were not ready to be granted their freedom. He pointed out in a pamphlet (1807) that: "It would be wrong to emancipate (the slaves). To grant freedom to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters' ruin, but their own. They must (first) be trained and educated for freedom." He campaigned for this to come to pass.
Your goals may not all be realized in your lifetime. Wilberforce died on 29th July, 1833. One month later, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act that freed all slaves in the British Empire.