Read Hebrews 11:8-19

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Hebrews 11:13 KJV)

In 1846, a slave named Dred Scott had the audacity to sue in the St. Louis Circuit Court for his freedom. His argument was that he had resided with his master in states where slavery was illegal. So, in his mind, he figured that he should also be free. However, the decision of the courts—argued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857— was that because blacks were not legal U.S. citizens, they could not sue in federal court. Therefore Dred Scott would remain a slave. On the contrary, this powerful vision of free blacks gave him the courage to challenge the system long before the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation. He embraced the possibility of freedom because, although the courts defined him as a slave, that is not the definition he embraced about himself.

Hebrews 11:13 explains that the people of faith listed in this chapter lived their lives based on a vision from God, even if that vision had not yet come to pass. Vision is the act or power of seeing, and the supernatural insight that comes from divine inspiration. God promised Abraham that Abraham would become the father of many nations and that his seed would be blessed. God also promised to give him Canaan, the land of promise. At the time of this promise, Abraham lived in the land of Ur, and his wife was barren. But, based on God’s revelation, Abraham embraced God’s plan and envisioned himself as God said.

What is your vision for your life? What have you embraced and what have you confessed or spoken over your life? Many of us have lost vision because we have embraced inferiority, mediocrity, poverty, loneliness, fear, anger, bitterness, hopelessness, and so forth. Don’t fall in the trap of envisioning and embracing what others say about you. The world does not define you or your life, God does.

Prayer: Lord, help me see beyond the limits I have placed on myself, and help me embrace your vision for my life. Amen.

excerpt from: African American History Month Daily Devotions 2014 by Angela Roberts Jones. Copyright©2013 by Abingdon Press. Used with permission.