Not the Usual Suspects
Imagine for a moment that there is a great contest. People from all over the world try out for an important role, to be chosen by the most high authority in the land.
But no one knows what the criteria are by which he or she will be judged worthy.
The day comes that the choice will be revealed and all are astonished when the names are called.
For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:25-29
Paul tells us not to be prideful of our calling, but to understand that God chooses by his own criteria, and he chooses wisely, by not choosing the ones deemed the most skilled or the most talented or the wisest.
He chooses the least likely to be the examples for all.
There is no way one could be boastful of such a calling, is there?
When we take a close look at the stories we love in The Bible, we can see that God's choices are not the usual suspects. They are not the first born, the strongest, the smartest or the greatest.
Though we say we understand how God works, and we admire the great men and women these chosen become, what types of choices do we make in our lives? Do we choose the greatest or the least?
Having spent much of my life working in the corporate world, I learned quickly to hire the best talent possible, but there were many times I got it wrong. It is not easy to determine how someone will respond to challenges, how they will manage others, how they will handle responsibility.
Sometimes help comes from someone we would never have expected to be capable.
Sometimes, we could even amaze ourselves with what we can accomplish.
God may or may not have a detailed plan for our lives. He may eave the details up to us, but he has high expectations for us. He believes in us as he believes in himself and he has our best performance in mind when he calls us out of our lowest place to rise up.
We could do the same for others, but we have to acknowledge something first, that we are not special, though we are specially chosen.
If anyone can do anything with God's help, as we say when confirming our Baptismal vows, then we should believe others we might choose could do the same.
So, when we go out in search of help, let us not assume we know who is best suited to help us. Let God help us with that. We might just be surprised at whom he picks.
More to come...