Thee Have I Chosen

Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. JEREMIAH 1:6

Nobody pushed Julia Foote into the pulpit. The most striking thing about her call to preach is how hard she fought it. She had always been opposed to women preaching, she tells us, and had spoken against it herself. When the call came, her first answer was the answer of Moses, Jeremiah and Jonah: “No, Lord, not me.”

The shape of a call

It did not come out of nowhere. For months before, she had been praying and exhorting in the homes she visited, and in meetings her whole soul, she says, seemed drawn out for the salvation of souls. Some of her friends told her she was too forward. She paid them no attention, because the work itself was food to her. A call often begins like that: with a love that cannot keep quiet, exercised in small places.

Then came the particular occasion when she knew God was calling her to a definite work, and she shrank. “I thought it could not be that I was called to preach — I, so weak and ignorant.” She knew all things were possible with God, even confounding the wise by the foolish things of the world. But knowing it did not make her willing.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:27

But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. JEREMIAH 1:7

Two months of refusal

What followed was, by her account, the darkest stretch of her Christian life. She lost her appetite and could not sleep. She fell ill, and a physician could do nothing for her. Her husband and friends feared she would die or lose her mind. She shared her trouble with a band of sisters, and one of them understood at once and told her to do as God had bidden her, or she would never be happy. She still could not. The difficulties women preachers met, from churchgoers and outsiders alike, rose before her like a mountain, and she cried, “Lord, I cannot go!”

But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. JEREMIAH 20:9

After nearly two months she told God she would do anything or go anywhere for Him, if He made it plain. She believed He did, and she said, “I will go, Lord.” Peace came at once. And then, within the hour, she began to reason with herself: she had no qualifications, her parents and friends would turn against her, and she regretted the promise. The peace left as quickly as it had come. It is one of the most honest moments in her book. Obedience is not settled once. It has to be settled again an hour later, when the arguments return.

For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 1 CORINTHIANS 9:16

Visions, and how to weigh them

At this point the reader meets the part of her story that is hardest for many modern Christians. Julia Foote says that her call came through an angel, who appeared with a scroll bearing the words that God had chosen her to preach His gospel without delay; that the angel came again with a warning; and that on a memorable Sabbath evening she was taken in a vision to a great tree where the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit sat, was washed by Christ in water like silver, clothed in a white robe, fed with fruit from the tree, and given a written commission on golden paper to carry in her bosom.

What is a reader to do with this? Two errors are possible: to dismiss it with a smile, as if God could never speak to a poor Black woman in a way a learned minister would not approve; or to take it as a pattern, and wait for angels before obeying what Scripture already says. The Bible does promise that in the last days God will pour out His Spirit, that sons and daughters will prophesy, and that His people will see visions and dream dreams. It also tells believers to test what they receive.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 JOHN 4:1

So it is worth noticing how her call was in fact tested. It came after months of fruitful exhorting, not out of idleness. It was confirmed by a sister in Christ who understood it at once. It sent her to do nothing Scripture forbids — to preach repentance and holiness — and, as the next chapter will show, she searched the Scriptures carefully to be sure of that. And it bore fruit for fifty years. The vision did not stand alone. It is the whole pattern that is persuasive, not the vision by itself, and a reader who has had no vision at all has lost nothing that matters.

The letter in the heart

The best part of the story comes the next day. As she talked with friends, she kept reaching into her bosom, without thinking, to show them her letter of authority. She found, as her friends told her, “it was in my heart, and was to be shown in my life, instead of in my hand.”

Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men. 2 CORINTHIANS 3:2

That is the lesson every Christian can take from her call, with or without visions. A commission from God is not a paper to wave at critics. It is proved by a changed life and a faithful ministry. When her minister, Jehiel Beman, came to see her and told her coldly that she would find out her mistake within a few months, she did not produce credentials. She answered: “My gifts are very small, I know, but I can no longer be shaken by what you or any one else may think or say.”

She could not have said that two months before. Having said yes to God, she no longer needed anyone else’s yes.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. What does your soul seem drawn out towards? Notice the small places where love already will not keep quiet. They may be the beginning of a call.

2. Is there something God has plainly asked of you that you have answered with “No, Lord, not me”? Name it, and name the mountain that stands in the way.

3. If you once said yes and then argued yourself out of it, say yes again today, and tell one trusted Christian that you have.

4. Test any strong impression you have received by Scripture, by the counsel of mature believers, and by its fruit. Do not wait for a vision to obey what the Bible already says.

5. Ask whether your commission, whatever it is, is being shown in your life rather than in your hand.

A PRAYER

Lord, like Jeremiah I have said, I cannot speak, I am only a child. Like Julia Foote I have said, No, Lord, not me.

Forgive me for arguing with You after I had promised. Settle my obedience again today.

Teach me to test what I think I hear, and to trust what You have plainly said.

Write Your commission in my heart, and let it be read in my life. Amen.