The Young Parliamentarian Who Changed a Nation

In 1780, William Wilberforce won his seat in the British Parliament at just twenty-one years old. By his own admission, he was a lightweight — a witty socialite more interested in dinner parties than legislation. He had no grand ambitions for reform. He certainly never imagined himself standing against the most powerful economic institution in the British Empire.

But after his conversion to Christian faith in 1785, Wilberforce felt an unmistakable calling pressing on his conscience. The transatlantic slave trade — that machinery of unspeakable cruelty — had to end. When he confided his sense of mission to John Newton, the former slave trader turned pastor, Newton's response was direct: "God has raised you up for the good of the nation."

Wilberforce hesitated. He was young. He stammered in early speeches. The opposition was enormous — wealthy merchants, entrenched politicians, even members of the royal family stood against him. For eighteen years, his abolition bills were defeated, mocked, and buried in committee.

Yet the Almighty had placed His words in that young man's mouth. In 1807, Parliament finally passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act by an overwhelming vote. Wilberforce wept on the bench.

When God told Jeremiah, "Do not say, 'I am too young,'" He was not issuing a pep talk. He was stating a fact about divine calling. The One who appoints us over nations to uproot and to plant does not consult our résumés first. He consults His own purposes — and then He supplies the words.