Daily Verse
Monday, June 1, 2026
Godly Leadership
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Monday's Reflection
Matthew 20:28 — Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Missouri during the Civil War — the exact year unknown because no one thought to record the birth of an enslaved child. He was orphaned as an infant when his mother was kidnapped by raiders. The white family who had owned his mother raised him, taught him to read, and gave him their surname. From that beginning of absolute poverty and powerlessness, he worked his way through school against enormous obstacles, becoming the first Black student and later the first Black faculty member at Iowa State Agricultural College, where he earned a master's degree in agricultural science.
In 1896 he received an invitation from Booker T. Washington to join the faculty at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Other universities wanted him. Thomas Edison offered him a position. Henry Ford pursued him. He turned them all down and stayed at Tuskegee for forty-seven years, teaching poor Black farmers how to restore depleted soil and grow food that would keep their families alive. He developed over three hundred products from the peanut alone — not to build a business empire, but to give poor farmers something they could grow cheaply and sell. He published his research in free bulletins distributed directly to farmers. He designed a wagon laboratory that he drove into rural communities to teach people who could not come to him. He never patented his discoveries because he believed God had given them to him freely and they should be passed on the same way.
When he died in 1943 his life savings of sixty thousand dollars went to the museum and foundation bearing his name. The epitaph on his grave at Tuskegee says everything: "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." He once said of his work: "I asked the Great Creator what the universe was made for. He replied — ask something more in keeping with that little mind of yours." He spent his life asking smaller questions and getting answers that fed a nation.
Prayer: Lord, give us George Washington Carver's freedom from the need for fame or fortune. Help us to use whatever gifts You have given us in the service of the people around us, freely and without holding back. Amen.