Strength Through Weakness

Thank God that he uses human weakness to bring glory to his name. While many believe the Bible is the story of strong leaders who were used by God to accomplish remarkable deeds, the story of the Bible is more accurately described as God using weak, broken, flawed, sinful, messy people to accomplish his purposes.

Beginning in Genesis, God makes clear that he will fulfill his Kingdom agenda in a counter cultural manner.  He will use the weak, the second born, the women and children to do the work regularly reserved for first-born males.  Over and over in the scriptures – over and over – when God chooses someone to do his work, He deliberately chooses the one the world says is not the way that things get done.

He chooses the younger Abel, not firstborn Cain.  He chooses the second born Isaac, not the first-born Ishmael.  God selected weaker mama’s boy Jacob and not the stronger outdoorsman Esau.  Little Ephraim was chosen over Manasseh and Perez was selected before Zereh.  Judah, the fourth born son of Jacob was chosen to carry the scarlet thread, not first born Rueben or better-known Joseph.  God chose tongue-tied Moses to deliver the people from Egyptian slavery, not his older brother Aaron.  David, the weakest of the family was chosen over his older, larger, stronger brothers.  Gideon, we are told was literally the runt of Israel.  He was chosen from the weakest tribe (Manasseh), the weakest clan (extended family) and he himself was the weakling of the family (Judges 6:14-15).  And yet, the Lord used Gideon to deliver all of Israel.

I could go on and on.  God choose barren old Sarah over a younger more attractive Hagar.  God chose ugly duckling Leah (the father of Judah) over beauty queen Rachel.  Nearly every judge is a broken mess, many bordering on embarrassing.  Hey kids, remember to be more like Samson!  What does this mean?  It means that God delights in using the weak and the despised and the forgotten of this world to accomplish his divine purposes!  Paul tells us this very thing in I Corinthians 1:27.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

We need to realize that it is commonly through broken people that God does remarkable acts, which bring honor and glory to his name. Oswald Chambers wrote:  God can achieve his purpose either through the absence of human power and resources or the abandonment of reliance upon them…  All through history God has chosen and used nobodies because of their unusual dependence upon Him made possible by the unique display of His power and grace.  He chose and used some bodies only when they renounced dependence upon their natural abilities and resources.”

At PastorServe, we serve broken pastors – we know this because everyone is broken!  Our vision is that one day every Pastor in America would have a place to turn in order to deal with the challenges and crises they face.