Using Imperfect People
by Luke McConnell
This year is off to an interesting start. Lying, disobedience, sibling rivalries and whole cities being destroyed are just a few things we’ve experienced.
I’m not talking about our personal experiences, but rather the things we’ve read about so far in Genesis and Exodus in the first month of our canonical reading plan! I hope you are participating in reading the Bible through in 2020. If not, I’d encourage you to join with us and enjoy being transformed alongside fellow church members.
Yes, there are multiple chapters per day and, yes, there will be days that are extremely boring from a content perspective, but the Bible is the primary way God speaks to us today. Without filling our minds and hearts with those words, we cannot know what God is calling us to do with and in our lives. Some of you may struggle with the motivation aspect but remember, you always have (or make) time for the things you enjoy doing. Former Oklahoma University Baptist Student Union director Max Barnett told me that one time, and that was what I needed to make a quiet time a discipline in my life.
Back to what we’ve learned so far. The fact that stands out to me the most through the book of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus is God doesn’t use perfect people. In fact, he doesn’t have the option because every person who has ever existed is fallen and sinful. Therefore, every great person of faith, every giant we look up to in Scripture, is no more deserving of being used by God than you or me.
We know this. At least we know it in our heads, but we don’t hold this truth in our hearts in the way we should. This truth should free us from the weight of perfectionism and the need to appear to have everything in our lives neat and orderly. Instead, we sometimes feel inadequate, unworthy of doing the great work of a holy God.
Just remember Abraham. We remember him for his great faith in God when he was promised to be made into a great nation, and when God told him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Yet Abraham also displayed a tremendous lack of faith when he told the Egyptians Sarah was his sister, and when he took her advice to have a child by Hagar because it appeared God wasn’t moving fast enough to fulfill his promises.
Jacob, master manipulator and used car salesman of Genesis, was nothing resembling a stalwart man of faith when he wrestled with God. And yet from Jacob came the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people.
In the story of the burning bush, we see Moses stutter and stammer all over himself trying to convince God he has chosen the wrong person for the job of leading the Israelites out of Egypt. God responds to Moses’ claim of being a bad public speaker in Exodus 4:11-12.
“The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’”
God knows what he is doing when he uses us for his glory. It’s very self-centered of us to try to point to our deficiencies or our sinfulness as reasons why God cannot use us. Instead of the focus being on God, his grace and his power, we put the focus on ourselves, even though it’s an attempt to be humble. But it’s not humility, is it? Humility is when we acknowledge our shortcomings in light of God’s ability to accomplish his work through us anyway. Pride is what happens when we just shine the light on ourselves and refuse to allow for the possibility that maybe God is who he says he is and will do good things through us despite our brokenness.
I hope these first three weeks have been encouraging to you as you’ve read Genesis and started on Exodus. I hope each of you will continue to discipline yourself to read the Bible daily and let the word of God transform you into the likeness of his son, Jesus.
Author Bio
Luke serves as the Cube Director at Council Road. He previously worked at Channel 9 as a sports writer and an account executive. He also serves as the play-by-play voice for Southern Nazarene athletics. Luke graduated from OU in 2011. Luke and his wife, Mary, have been members at Council Road since 2012. They have two-year-old twin boys, Jackson and Cameron. Mary teaches third grade at Wiley Post Elementary. They also serve in the Student Ministry and help lead a home group.