The Voice at the Kitchen Table

In January 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. sat alone at his kitchen table in Montgomery, Alabama. It was midnight. He was twenty-seven years old, and the bus boycott he was leading had brought death threats to his doorstep. His phone rang thirty to forty times a day with hateful callers. That night, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee gone cold, he bowed his head and prayed aloud: "Lord, I am down here trying to do what is right. But I must confess that I am losing my courage."

Then, as King later described it, he heard a voice — not audible, but unmistakable. "Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the world." In that kitchen, his fear left him. He knew who he was and whose he was.

Three days later, his house was bombed. But the voice had come first.

In Mark's Gospel, before Jesus faces a single demon, before He heals a single leper, before the Pharisees begin plotting against Him, the heavens tear open and the Father speaks: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." The identity comes before the trial. The affirmation comes before the wilderness.

The Almighty does not wait until we have proven ourselves to tell us who we are. He speaks first. He always speaks first.