God uses seemingly insignificant things and people to get His work done and to teach those who love and serve Him! Who else but God would write the story of the arrival of His Son and have Him spend His first night on earth lying as a newborn infant in a feeding trough for animals? It catches us by surprise! We expect high and lofty, but instead we get the commonplace.
Now, there are times when God does use the awesome and mystifying. Who can sit unmoved by Handel’s Messiah? 260 pages composed in just twenty-four days! It brought a king to his feet in praise and adoration!
But isn’t it comforting that God so often uses the commonplace?
He said to Moses: “What is that in your hand?”
The
answer was – a shepherd’s staff.
Do
you realize how common a shepherd’s staff was in Moses’ day?
They
were not the ornate staffs of expensive metals we see in cathedrals.
Rather,
they were a stick of wood picked up along the way with natural crooks in it and
of sturdy size that would easily serve the needs of the shepherd in tending and
protecting his sheep!
David, in his brash youth, stepped forward to face a giant!
When
King Saul’s armor didn’t fit, he went to face Goliath with his weapon of choice
– a sling and five smooth stones. We know the story, so we don’t laugh; but if
we were hearing it for the first time, we’d think it ludicrous! No club? No sword? No battle-axe? Against a colossal brute? A leather sling?????
Elijah wanted to help the widow and her son in their poverty.
“What
do you have?”
“Oh,
I have a little oil and some flour.”
“Use
the little you have and make me a loaf of bread. If you obey, your flask will never run out of
oil and your box will never be empty of flour.”
And
it was so.
A group of thousands had remained in a wilderness area listening to Jesus teach for several days. They were hungry. Jesus didn’t want to send them away famished. He asked His disciples, “How much do we have?” Andrew was the only one to speak. He reported that he had found a young boy with a lunch of five small loaves and two fish. It was all Jesus needed to feed a large crowd!
In the first century, the village of Bethlehem was small and insignificant. But many years earlier the prophet Micah had declared: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler who will shepherd My people Israel.’” You know the rest of the story. Jesus, the Messiah, wasn’t born in mighty Jerusalem. No. He was born in a cave, among animals, in Bethlehem!
God simply isn’t limited in the way He does things! After all, He is GOD! He can do what He wants to do and when He wants to do it! And He loves to surprise us!
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NO ONE IS INSIGNIFICANT
If anyone was insignificant, it was Ross. He lived several blocks from the church I led for thirteen years. Due to an accident many years earlier, Ross couldn’t speak clearly. He was always dirty and unkempt. Most of the time he smelled really badly. Very few attempted to engage him for the obvious reasons. Yet, he was a regular attender. His hair looked like it hadn’t met with a comb in ages. Yet there he was week after week. I tried so hard, time after time, to understand him, but with very little success. Occasionally he’d stop by the church when he saw my car there and try to have a conversation with me.
Even as the church grew, Ross continued to come. He did have one friend in the church. Harvey was a fellow that came real early on Sundays to distribute Sunday School materials. He didn’t particularly care for the ways I was leading the church. I had known him for many years because of our district camp meeting. As a kid, I had helped him ‘white-wash’ the trees at the campground. I had respected him as a godly man because he was often blessed and would let out a loud melodic “Woo Hoo!” when he felt the moving of the Holy Spirit.
But when I became his pastor, he seemed to see me as a threat to the homeostasis of the church. He singlehandedly made ministry hard for me. Even when the church doubled in size, he could only see me as a threat.
Yet, Harvey – unbeknownst to anyone but me – would periodically take Ross into the church’s furnace room and completely bathe him. He would wash out Ross’ clothes and dry them. He was Ross’ best friend! Harvey seemed to be able to understand Ross better than the rest of us. He exhibited genuine, tangible love for Ross, while most of us did our best to ignore him.
In spite of the adversarial relationship I had to endure with Harvey, I always admired him for the love and attention that he doled out to Ross. Somehow, Ross had risen above insignificance to Harvey.
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There is no one and no thing that is insignificant to God! He made it all and He cares for it all!
I look back and wonder why we didn’t at least try to do more for Ross. If we had focused our efforts together, it seems that we could have helped him. Was there a medical procedure that could have given him back his speech? Could we have helped him learn to be more approachable? How did so many of us manage to just ignore him Sunday after Sunday? Where was the love of Christ in me when I was so systematically confronted by one of the least of these?
God tested our church back then – and we failed the test! I must learn from this failure and be more aware and willing as I live out the rest of my days!
NO ONE IS INSIGNIFICANT TO GOD - NO ONE!!!!!
Be aware of that as you move through this day and this week! Be alert to those who might be invisible to the crowd. Speak to them. Recognize them as a gift of God! Lift their day! You have the power to change their life!
