God Wants To Use Us DESPITE Our Shortcomings!!!
If musical instruments could talk, what would they say is their deepest wish/desire?
TO BE PLAYED!
To have beautiful music played through them by a virtuoso (expert) musician.
The same is true for humans…
Whether we realize it or not, we have a DEEP DESIRE to be used by God…but not in the way that we humans use a can of soda and then toss it away when it is empty.
Rather, we have a deep desire to be used by God our Creator like that musical instrument–to have God play through us the beautiful music of His symphony of unconditional love, unearnable forgiveness (grace), eternal Truth, and inextinguishable joy.
We desire this…AND SO DOES GOD!
But do you ever feel that God could not/would not ever use you because you have particular handicaps, flaws, shortcomings, or other deficiencies?
Do you ever look at yourself and consciously or subconsciously think, “God could never play His music through me…I have broken strings, a rotting shell, clogged valves, punctured drums, and rusty keys.”
Don’t believe it!
Here is a list of ordinary people in the Bible who were used MIGHTILY by God in spite of their handicaps, flaws, shortcomings, and other deficiencies!
Abraham & Sarah: lack of faith (they laughed at God’s promise of a child)
Joseph: rejected by his family (sold into slavery!)
Job: tragic pain and suffering
Moses: stutterer and on-the-run criminal
Gideon: insecurity
Hannah: deep grief
Esther: fear
Ruth: widowed in a foreign land, poor, and homeless
David: lack of fighting experience and small physical size
Solomon: lack of wisdom and ability to carry out his important job
Eleven Disciples: lack of education
Levi (Matthew) and Zaccheus: terrible reputations as tax collectors
Peter: immaturity/impulsiveness
Mary Magdalene: former prostitute, formerly possessed by a demon
Saul/Paul: sinful past of actively hating Jesus and His followers
WOW! If the LORD can play His beautiful music through them, He can play through ANYONE!
Please remember the words of D.L. Moody:
“We may easily be too big for God to use, but never too small.”
Look at what God declares in Amos 9:11:
“In that day
I will restore David’s fallen shelter—
I will repair its broken walls
and restore its ruins—
and will rebuild it as it used to be…'”
Look at what Jesus says is part of His mission in Isaiah 61:1:
[ The Year of the Lord’s Favor ]
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed [chosen] me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted…”
Look at how God responds to us when we realize how broken we are!
“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
he rescues those whose spirits are crushed”
(Psalm 34:18).
He doesn’t THROW US OUT when we are broken…
…He TAKES US IN!
We are never too broken, too bad, too lost, too wounded, too handicapped, too stained, too young, too old, too uneducated, too poor, too dirty, too weak, too alone, for God to use.
He DELIGHTS in doing extraordinary things through ordinary people because that helps His fame to spread even more…that helps more and more people to be attracted to HIM (and not merely to us) so that more and more people can have Him play His music through them as well!
Please…receive Jesus as your Savior, your Healer, your Forgiver, your Friend, your King, your God, your Everything.
Say “Yes!” to Christ Jesus…He is the Great YES of heaven!
He will not merely teach you to play beautiful music, but He will literally live inside of you through His Holy Spirit and play His melody through you…
…He has done it through others, and He CAN and WILL do the same through you…if you allow Him. 🙂