Who Are We To Say?

Good morning, people, I don't have all of the answers you seek! Yuk, yuk, of course I don't. I began life as a sinner just like you did. How could I have any answers unless God reveals them to me? Isaiah was not born with prophetic knowledge. Little baby Moses was not floating in his reed basket making plans for messing up Pharaoh's day in a few years. Even on the morning of Matthew's calling by our Lord, he probably opened up the Fleecum Street tax booth with every intention of going home at sundown to a good meal and time with his family. How was he to know that one day he would write something called a 'gospel'? You and me get up on most days not feeling very special in our service to the Lord. Surely Isaiah didn't feel this bad on a morning he received the word from God! I'm quite sure that he got up each morning with fire in his eye and a power in his heart, ready to face down the king and his counselors, and fully prepared to bring bad news to those faithless Israelites. Actually, even as God called Isaiah up to heaven to get his marching orders, the man mumbled an excuse through his unclean lips perhaps hoping that God made a mistake in selecting the son of Amoz. Who are we to say that 'I' am not fitted to God's calling?

We do have many good examples of people telling God of their own unsuitability to the task at hand. A lot of them are listed in what is known to us as the Faith Hall of Fame in Hebrews. We tend to think that such callings are a part of the historical Bible, as though God is not the Living God and that His word is just a document from the past. We look in the mirror and compare ourselves with those folks in the movies and wonder how God could use little ol' me. It may very well be that God has a little ol' mission just suited for little ol' me, but then again, one of us may speak before kings and princes. Not me! I'm too old! I think someone used that one in the Bible. Not me! I can't speak, I stutter a lot! Yup, someone tried that one too. Face it; you and me have no good excuses for not serving the Lord. How about that fellow that is just tall, strong, and handsome, the big man on campus as they say?

The Bible has one of those fellows too. In 1 Samuel, we read that God's selection as the first king of Israel was just the man that the people would have chosen. If they held an all-Israel beauty contest, Saul would have beaten out the babes in their swimsuits so handsome was he. Not only handsome, but he stood out in a crowd. The New King James describes him as from the shoulders upward he was taller than anyone. Which either means that Saul had a really long head, or was the old-timey way of saying that he was head and shoulders taller than everyone. Saul was just that one of a kind tall, athletic, handsome fellow that we all want to be. Surely that would make us suitable for God's service. Why didn't God make me that way? Saul turned out to be a terrible failure. God eventually rejected Saul and started over with a young boy.

I like how Saul starts his service though, this big powerful man, a champion of the people of Israel. As Samuel brought the tribe of Benjamin forward to announce the new king, the Lord had to point him out, "There he is, hidden among the equipment." It seems that even if we had been created in the form that we think suitable for good service, we would have no small amount of trouble answering boldly God's calling to step forward and receive our mission.

Bucky