God uses growing people, not perfect ones!

A third misconception of the paradigm, God gives us the power to choose, argues God won’t use me to do his work until I get my own issues worked out. As with all the stifling misconceptions, this one also contains an element of truth. God wants us to serve him with “clean hands and a pure heart.” All too often, however, we use our own past failures or shortcomings as an excuse for inactivity.

The liberating truth here is that God uses growing people, not perfect ones. The trajectory of my life is aimed at victory! Think of some of the people in the New Testament whose personal life issues were not yet worked out and yet God used them to represent him to others. There was the man whom Jesus healed from demons wanted to go with him, but Jesus told him, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.” (Mark 5:19)

Another example is the woman at the well in John 4. She was living a sinful life and had just met Jesus. But she was changed by him and immediately went back to the city to tell others about him. As a result many trusted in Jesus. Then there was the woman in Luke 7 who was presumably a prostitute. She came to Jesus in repentance. She wept and wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair and poured perfume on them. Jesus corrected the harsh thinking of the Pharisees present by drawing attention to the love expressed by this woman. God uses growing people, not perfect ones.

When Linda and I were 23 years old we had been married a year and were just starting Bible College. About two weeks into the first semester the dean approached me and asked if I’d be willing to serve as an itinerant speaker for a small church who was without a pastor. I agreed to do so and began preaching for them.

About a month later, the church asked me to be their pastor and added that they wanted me to continue my education full time. One of my Bible school professors became my mentor. The church had been through a very rough season in its history and was left with about 30 people. I was the youngest man in the church by 15 years.

I have to be honest with you. I had no clue as to how to pastor a church, much less rebuild a very injured one. But my mentor gave me some sound advice. He reminded me of the hurt these people had been through and told me to simply love them. So Linda and I packed up our newborn baby and began visiting everyone in the church and loved them.

To this day, I don’t know how those gracious people endured my labored preaching! I was so green, so unfinished and unprepared! But we loved them and God began to grow the church and heal their wounds. You see, God delights in using us in our weaknesses, because it demands that we rely on him for everything. That’s what we had to do, because we were nothing without him!

One of the greatest expressions of God’s love, mercy and grace that you and I have the privilege of experiencing is watching God work through us in spite of our inadequacies and imperfections! God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” To which Paul responds, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) God uses growing people, not perfect ones. The trajectory of my life is aimed at victory!

©2009 Rob Fischer