George Washington Carver: The Scientist Who Walked With God at 4 A.M. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

The true story of George Washington Carver — born into slavery, he met God in the woods at 4 a.m. and changed American agriculture (Proverbs 3:5-6).

In 1864, in Diamond, Missouri, a band of slave raiders kidnapped a young mother and her infant son. The mother was never seen again. The baby was traded for a racehorse. His name was George Washington Carver.

That stolen baby — half-dead from whooping cough, raised by the white farmer who bought him back — became the man who would walk with God at 4 a.m. in a small garden, talk to peanuts, and revolutionize American agriculture.

Carver said his time with God in the garden every morning at 4 a.m. was when he received his ideas. From peanuts, he made 300 products: ink, soap, shampoo, paper, plastic, gasoline. From sweet potatoes, 118 products. He testified before Congress. He turned down a $100,000 offer from Thomas Edison. And he died with $60,000 — all of which he gave to a research institute.

This 5-minute devotional is for anyone who's wondered if your ordinary morning walk with God really makes a difference. It does. Proverbs 3:5-6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."

The path may start in a peanut field. Or a kitchen. Or a hospital room. Or a cubicle. But the God who walked with Carver at 4 a.m. is walking with you, too.

Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-6 · Genesis 5:24 · Psalm 5:3

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More from Pastor Rodney Coe: rodneycoe.com

Keep Looking Up. — Pastor Rodney Coe

#GeorgeWashingtonCarver #ChristianHistory #Proverbs3 #PrayerLife #LiftUpYourDay #TrueStoriesOfFaith #ChristianScientist #BlackHistory

Transcript

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In 1864, on a cold Missouri night, Confederate raiders rode onto a small farm. They were looking for anything valuable. What they found instead was a woman named Mary, a slave, and her baby boy, bundled in a blanket. They took them both. When a search party finally returned from the farm, they brought back only one thing, a tiny baby, half frozen and barely alive. The boy's mother, Mary, was never seen again. Nobody would have predicted what would become of that baby. He would advise presidents. He would revolutionize an entire region's economy. Thomas Edison himself would offer him a six-figure salary, and he would turn Edison down. But here's the part nobody tells us. The secret behind every discovery, every breakthrough, every invention, it all started the same way. Every single morning at 4 a.m. in a garden talking to God. Stay with me. Take five minutes out of your day. Welcome to Lift Up Your Day. I'm Rodney Coe, and every episode I bring you a true story that might change the way you see your day and the God who's walking with you through it. The baby's name was George, George Washington Carver. And if you think you know his story because you read a paragraph about peanuts in a history book, folks, you don't know the half of it. George was different from the start. While other children played in the dirt, he studied it. Neighbors called him the plant doctor when he was eight years old. But here's where it gets hard. In post-Civil War Missouri, a black child didn't just walk into a school. George had to leave home at 12, wandering from town to town, sleeping in barns, working as a cook and doing laundry just to stay near a school. When he finally got accepted to Highland College in Canvas, they turned him away at the door. The day he arrived. Most people would have quit, but George had a conversation partner who never turned him away every morning at 4 a.m. Carver eventually earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees at Iowa State. The first black student and the first black faculty member. Then came a call from Booker T. Washington at a little school in Alabama called Tuskegee. The lab didn't exist yet, the pay was modest, but Washington told him the truth. Our people need you. George went, and for the next 47 years he never left. Here's what they don't teach us in school. Every single morning, Carver woke up at 4 a.m., walked into his garden in the dark, and talked to God. Not a quick prayer, but a real conversation. The way you talk to your closest friend. He once told a reporter he asked God, Lord, teach me the secrets of the universe. God said, George, that knowledge is for me alone. So George, ask a smaller question, then tell me the secret of the peanut. And God said, Now, George, that's more your size. He called his lab God's Little Workshop. No books, no journals, just George, his plants, and his creator. What came out of that workshop? Over 300 products from the peanut alone, over a hundred from a sweet potato. He literally changed the economy of the American South. Thomas Edison offered Carver a salary that would have made him wealthy. He said no. He never patented most of his discoveries because as he put it, God gave them to me. How can I sell them to anyone else? On his grave they carved these words. He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world. Proverbs three, five and six tells us, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. George Carver didn't lean on his own understanding. He leaned into that four AM conversation. So let me ask you today, what's your peanut? What's that ordinary broken thing you haven't taken to God yet? Take it to the garden. Because the same God who showed George the secret of the peanut is waiting to show you something too. Friends, you have a purpose. A kidnapped baby, a plant doctor, a man who talked to flowers and listened to God every morning. And that folks is how God lifts up your day. Keep looking up. May God bless your day.