The Unlikely Candidate

This semester I am taking a class titled the Hebrew Bible which is an academic study of the Old Testament. It fascinates me to really attempt to view the Bible in a totally different perspective. At first, the class was extremely challenging to me in that I felt attacked and discouraged by what I was learning in the lecture. Over the past few weeks, however, I have been gaining understanding on how to learn what I'm being taught without changing what I know to be true. I really feel like God can speak through the class and use it for good in my life this semester. I also think that the class is meant to challenge me a little bit and make me think about beliefs that are fundamental to my faith.

One of the things that has been the most interesting to me in the course has been our discussion of characters. The Old Testament is all about God's interaction, directly and indirectly, with his creation. He is intricately involved in the lives of those who he has chosen to be His people and in some cases even those who are not his chosen people. With almost every character that we study the class is puzzled by why God would ever choose the person that he did? Most of the time we can't come up with a definitive response. But that's really what's fascinating to me about the whole story; God chose the most unlikely people. It reminds me a quote that I read from a book recently: 

'The next time you think you have an excuse why God can't use you, consider the following:

Noah was a drunkard, Abraham was too old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses was a murderer, Gideon was afraid, Samson had long hair, Rahab was a prostitute, Timothy was too young, David had an illicit affair, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached naked, Job was bankrupt, John the Baptist ran around in a loin-cloth and ate locusts, Peter was hot-tempered, John was a self-righteous. The disciples fell asleep while praying, Martha fretted about everything, Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed, the boy with the fish and five rolls of bread was too obscure, the Samaritan woman was divorced more than once, Zacchaeus was too small, Paul was too religious, and Lazarus was dead. . . No more excuses!"

God didn't pick the people that we would think. He chose people that were broken, in pain, sinful, dirty and not put together in the least. What is even cooler than that was that there was only one condition for all those people. God didn't ask them to clean up their acts, get their lives together and try to become perfect people, the only thing He asked was that they follow Him. That's all that God is asking on any of us. Sometimes I have the tendency to think that I have to do all these things to "better" myself before I can truly go to the Lord and be useful for Him but that's false. The Lord wants us as is and that's it. In reality we are all the least likely candidates because we all fall short. That is what is so beautiful about who Christ is. He can take me, dirty rotten sinner Ruth, and work through me to further His kingdom. So stop saying I'm not the right person for the job. Stop asking why me? Just start following.