Ever feel a bit small? Like a bit of a nobody? Like you might not be the best and most capable person to do something? Perfect. Perfect ground for God to do something. God loves to defy human logic and pick the person no one expects. He's going to turf the Midianites out of Israel, so he picks someone from the half tribe of Manasseh, the lowest member of the weakest of families. He's going to anoint Israel's first King, so he picks someone form the least clan of the smallest tribe. Going to replace him with a King who will overcome all enemies and lead the country in God? Well, pick the youngest one of the family, the one no one thought would be needed by Samuel, so they left with the sheep. We can, of course, go on. Want to pick someone to spread Salvation to the gentiles, something that was prophesied by Isaiah, and made possible by the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God himself? Oh, well, pick the one who is most against it and wants to wipe out all the Christians.

So, what do we learn from this? We're never, ever, too small for God to use, what matters is the heart, what matters is that God can see in a person, and see that they will do what he wants, what matters is that God knows what we can all do. Considered a nobody? Great, fantastic, it'll be even more obvious to all and sundry then that the reason you're shining and succeeding is none other than because God is with you. Just like God was with Gideon in power enough to take on a force that had been suppressing a whole country, just like God was with Paul in power enough for him to stand with confidence and say 'Take me to Caesar' and spread the message of salvation to thousands of previously doomed people.

God is radical, God is more radical than anything any of us have ever known, I can't remember who said this, but its biblical that God is a God who 'Sees what isn't and calls it as it is.' God can take the smallest thing and make it work for his plan, God made a donkey stop and rebuke a prophet, if God can use a donkey how much more any one of us? Taking something everyone else fails to see the potential and worth in and making it amazing is something he does and does well.

Hmm, it seems I am rambling somewhat now, but I just think that it's so amazing that God picks who he wants and just overcomes every trivial earthly circumstance, things that to us would seem like mountains, and God just makes them crumble, and shows His Glory however and whenever he pleases, and He uses whomever He chooses to do it. We need to take off our earthly mindsets that limit what we think both ourselves and others can achieve and start to think instead of what God can achieve through them and through us. He sees what is not and calls it as it is. He saw Abraham and saw the father of nations, He sees you and I, and who knows what he sees we could be? But its bound to be awesome, so we need to adjust our outlook and let him take the reins.

Anyway, thats what has been speaking to me through my reading recently, and through some of the meetings at church.

Blessings,

Pete...