Not what the world expects

I  always stand amazed that God would choose use someone such as I in the ministry.  I’m not saying I’ve achieved greatness, but rather that it is great that He chooses to use me at all. Growing up in rural West Virginia often put a complex or stereotype on youth of not being able to achieve greatness due to the isolated conditions of the area. I use that in past tense, because with the media means available today someone in the deepest jungle could be discovered, but that was not the case when I was growing up. When someone from West Virginia made it big, it was big deal… it still is in my world.

I visited my friend Gloria last night for a girl’s night of watching “The Voice,” and low and behold there was a West Virginian on the show. Cody Wickline of Beckly, West Virginia sang the old country standard “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” turning four chairs with his old time country sound. For the record I was not country when country wasn’t cool… I’m still not too country. But this boy certainly deserved the spotlight last night for this talent. Now back to the Bible…

It’s one thing to get noticed on a Hollywood platform, but it’s humbling to get noticed out of the throne room of God. I’m glad that God’s chair doesn’t turn on talent. The world’s standards are not God’s standards, Hallelujah. God’s are much higher, yet He’ll reach much lower to bring us up to His standards.

David sang in Psalm 8:1-2

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

Nobody expected David, the little shepherd boy, to slew Goliath that day in the meadow. On the contrary, when he donned that shield they expected to be holding his funeral the next day. When his dad sent him with cheese and bread he didn’t send him to fight, he sent him as the Pizza delivery boy and messenger. But in 1 Samuel, Chapter 17 we see the making of a somebody…

Verse 12 says  “”Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehemjudah, whose name was Jesse; and he had eight sons: and the man went among men for an old man in the days of Saul.” David was the youngest of eight sons, a babe, not a warrior but a shepherd. He was not expecting to make the stage that afternoon when he delivered pizza, but when he seen Goliath making a mockery of Israel, the passion that God had planted down inside of him bubbled to the surface when he ask his brothers “Is there not a cause.” (V29) Sure there was a cause, but it was not theirs to fight. God was about to make a somebody out of a nobody.

David’s my hero of faith for a number of reasons:

• Because he was failure and God still used him. (Because of his heart)
• Because nobody had a clue what was going on inside of him (But God did)
• Because he’d been practicing for battle behind the scenes (in the country with critters)
• Because he was anointed (And even then he was the last one picked)
• Because his army was made up of society rejects (1 Samuel 22:2 – distressed in debt and discontent)

David was a man after God’s own heart before he was even a man. God’s “chair” turned in my life the day I accepted Him as Savior. As a young Christian I told I was peculiar. I’m not a Bible Scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but God has spoken messages to my soul long before I started a website. God made me rehearse singing when the world said I couldn’t so that when I stood on the platform the very first time and opened my mouth the congregation of the Lord was shocked that I could sing… and so was I. I still am. God doesn’t use the expected. When the apostles began teaching and preaching the religious crowd was shocked because these “ignorant and unlearned” men spoke with such confidence and intelligence. Babes, the whole lot of them, regardless of age.

So… what’s the world telling you this morning? Sing God’s song, walk the path He’s chosen and step out of pizza delivery mode to become a warrior. That’s His message to me this morning. What about you?