Apostle Kim Daniels walks in the Spirit with every step and allows the Lord to guide her politics, which has led to Florida House Bill 839.
HB 839 would allow “In God We Trust,” the state motto, to be displayed in schools. After Nikolas Cruz opened fire in Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School last week, Daniels says she sees the motto as a symbol of hope that could inspire students.
“Few would disagree with me that God is positive. He’s not a Republican and He’s not a Democrat. He’s not black and He’s not white. He is the light. And our schools need light in them like never before,” Daniels said on the chamber floor. “It is not a secret that we have some gun issues that need to be addressed. But the real thing that needs to be addressed are issues of the heart. Yes, assault weapons in the hands of young people are deadly, but what’s more deadly, and we have to get to the root of things like the video games that our children watch all the time, from growing up to becoming of age, when they watch video games when they literally become virtually trained to be assassins.”
As children grow up absorbing this violence, they can act out, leading them to a tortured journey through the justice system and prisons. Yet in state prisons, God is display.
“Does a child have to wait until they get to prison to see ‘In God We Trust’? And I was also thinking that these same state prisons have chaplains that we don’t have in our schools,” Daniel says.
Politicians, Daniels says, speak God with their mouths to get elected but don’t necessarily follow Him with their actions after the vote.
“If we take God out and we take the church out of our elections, then many of us would not be standing here. We cannot continue to use the houses of God to get elected and then come on this floor and try to keep God out. We cannot put God in a closet when the problems we have are bigger than us,” Daniels says.
To driver her point home, Daniels spoke openly about a vision she had recently.
In that vision, I saw one of the Democratic leaders speaking right here, and I was sitting here, and whatever he said, there were Republican leaders that stood behind him. And I heard a voice sternly say that made my heart beat so fast, and I believe it was God and for those who don’t believe in God, I’m going to believe for you right now. I believe it was God, and I heard a voice say, “Do not politicize what has happened in Florida, and do not make this a thing of division. This is a time for the Republicans and this is a time for the Democrats to meet because this is an issue.”
So I rise on this great floor and I declare that as a believer, we do not have to get in our closets to worship God. As an African-American female, I know my ancestors trusted God to come out of slavery. The Civil Rights movement was catapulted out of the church. We trust him for terrorist attacks; everybody calls on God when bad things happen. We trusted him through hurricanes and natural disasters. So I elicit your support to allow a symbol to be placed where our children can see something positive, because as we listen to our children cry out, we cannot ignore our voice, but things may get so bad one day that we may have to sit back and say that wow, this thing is bigger than us.
The House overwhelmingly passed the bill, 97-10.
