Broken For Building

Can God use you to do something phenomenal, something special for His kingdom? Little old you with all your issues and all your hang ups? You with all the imperfections?  Sure He can! 

God is not looking for perfect people. If that were the case, there would be no one to meet His qualifications. In Exodus 4: 10-13, God gave Moses a directive and before Moses fully considered the task, he already had an excuse about why he couldn’t be the one that God could use. What is God asking you to do? What excuses are you considering giving Him?

Like Moses, I’m sure that most of us can quickly give a long list of qualities we don’t possess . Moses said he wasn’t eloquent. Gideon said he didn’t come from the best family. But despite what they didn’t have, God used them to do mighty things. In Exodus 4: 10-13, we can learn a few things from Moses’ experience.

1. Instead of magnifying your shortcomings, magnify the God who still wants to use youSometimes we focus so much on what’s missing that we don’t see what we do have. As children of God, we have the omnipotent, omnipresent, living God on our side. He can take your little (ability, talent, connections, etc) and make it GREAT. He can take your ashes and give you beauty. He can take your mess and use it to bring someone out of their mess. Instead of focusing on what you are missing, ask God to show you what He can do in spite of your faults. Ask God to make his power a reality in your life, something you have experienced and something you can attest to.


2. God doesn’t ask us to measure upGod doesn’t ask us to measure up to any body else. It’s easy to compare yourself or your abilities to others around you..but Lord, he’s so skilled and I haven’t even been trained to do that. Lord, she’s been doing this for three years and this is my first time doing this.  The wonderful thing about God is that He doesn’t ask for us be perfect in order to use us. Our only pre-qualification requirements are  salvation, availability and teachability. 

What does availability mean? Well, you’ve got to be willing to invest in your relationship with God. How can God encourage me if I’m always on the run? How can God give me instructions if I only seek him on Sunday and never read His word? How can he deposit a word in my spirit if I don’t allow time for listening to him? Teachability. That’s a tough one because it requires me to be taught by God and sometimes by others. In essence, this requires me to be humble and requires me to admit that there are things I do not know which can sometimes be a tough pill to swallow.

God doesn’t ask us to magnify our faults, nor does he ask us to ignore them.  Work on them. Learn from them, grow despite them. But don’t simply focus on the fact that they are there. Instead, focus on the God who can turn it around for you. In Exodus 4:11-12, God reminded Moses  that He is all powerful and he is able to help us in whatever task he has given us.  In Moses’ case, God promised to give him the words to say. In your case, He will give you whatever it is that you lack…enough for you to accomplish the task.

Lord, I’m far from perfect, but with your power and strength I can be used to do something great for you. Thank you for not discounting me because I don’t measure up to my own standards and sometimes to the standards of others. I want to be available and teachable so that you can use me to do a task that will change someone’s life.