“You were created to be a difference maker, making significant differences in the world. God is the source of your power, abilities, opportunities and even the desire to do good works. Philippians 2:13 states, “For It is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” A difference maker allows God to transform their character and allows Him to work through them. God wants to use you as His secret, special weapon to attack darkness and bring restoration to humanity. God can use one person to bring about change. He sought one person to stand in the gap for the nation, Ezekiel 22:30. When you are guided by faith and divine purpose, you can do extraordinary things. God can make a difference through you!” Dottie Wilson 9/23/25
Lord, Dottie Wilson’s morning devotional encouragements have spoken to my heart so often! I post them regularly, sharing them on Facebook with others. But this one today feels too personal, too close to my heart. Just 15 minutes ago we finished our Tuesday morning Seedbed Plow Team zoom call prayer gathering. It was a recap and celebration of some of the potent experiences of Your Holy Spirit Presence at the New Room Conference last week.
On Friday morning, during worship time at New Room 2025, a phrase was spoken or sung about “raising up an army” or “rising up like an army”. It seemed like a call to action for people who will be obedient to do God’s will. Immediately afterward, it seemed, David Thomas went into an introduction of a new film by Seedbed.com about an event that had come to light that had occurred the night before the beginning of the Asbury “Outpouring” in February 2023. It was a gathering of people who had been sensitized to a discovery of old documents in the county courthouse detailing property transactions involving slaves. The group had gathered for a “witnessing circle” to recognize and honor in prayers of lament and long delayed celebration for the lives of those who had lived in slavery….many born into it.. men, women, infants, children. I could not watch the film. Instead, I found my heart wrenched by the story of this event having occurred the night before the Asbury Outpouring’s beginning. I could not watch it because my heart has been burdened by racial division since at least age 9, 1963. As a native Alabaman from the same hometown at George Wallace, I was sensitized and repulsed by the depth of racial bigotry and racial enmity. Over the years I observed its outward unfolding in my generation. It is at least as bad as it’s ever been, if not worse now, it seems, though often less overtly so, than I have known. And my heart is more burdened now than ever…and that’s saying a lot, as people who know me well could attest.
A pastor friend decades ago was removed from his congregation because he dared to preach the true biblical call for racial reconciliation in Selma, AL. A few years later he found himself compelled to leave vocational ministry altogether rather than compromise with denominational and congregational rejection of biblical truths, their refusal to hear the truth to call sin what it is, but having episcopal leadership demanding accommodation, while he called for repentance and forgiveness.
As Friday morning unfolded toward a presentation, New Room’s sense of being called to be intentional in taking on the issue of spiritual conflict resolution in the arena of racial division seemed a natural progression as that “witnessing circle” seems to have been an act that preceded and perhaps revealed the Lord’s heart as the Asbury Outpouring began the next morning in that same community.
I had to leave before the final speaker’s presentation to deliver people to the airport. When I returned to pick up another person for the airport, the event was over. Commissioning and anointing with oil was done. People lingered visiting. I looked around to find someone with the red lanyard on the prayer team to pray with me and anoint me for going forth. I went over to a young man engaged in college ministry. I told him about my hope of the move toward the next generation being a healing force in racial division. I shared with him my experience from the New Room conference in 2023 in Houston about which I had written in this regard, recognizing the need more acutely than in recent years. I expressed my hope that racial reconciliation is coming, whether I live to see it or not considering all I’ve seen in my lifetime. He shared his own heart, and personal family experience, being from Mississippi. Here were two generations whose hearts have long been stirred to desire this. Dare we hope now that it can be a reality? I told him that I, at 71, have lived with this pain all my life and have wondered what more I could do. I told him I felt like a Hannah dropping a beloved, long/desired child at a temple altar to be trained up by a priest, to raise up a prophet to move it forward. He bent down in tears and didn’t speak for a few minutes. Then he said he’s been praying to be like a Samuel, called to anoint and equip Davids for a formidable battle in this very cause. I told him I have not known if I was midwifing a generation that would take up the cause of Christ or a hospice nurse to bring a dying generation’s meager efforts to its grave.
He anointed me. We prayed, exchanged contact information and parted ways. Seeing the way God is at work in younger generations, I am heartened for the world now being led by my children and grandchildren’s generations and into which my great-children will grow up. Thank you, Precious Lord, for the continued evidence of the redemptive red thread of your will at work around me in new and fresh ways.