When we hear the Great Commission—or anytime, really, that we talk about someone being called by God; when we hear that God can and does call all of us at every stage of our lives—what do we think? Do we ignore it and tell ourselves that we’re the one possible exception among all the people who’ve ever been created in God’s image and that God cannot possibly use us in any way? This is simply not true. It’s not a question of “if,” it’s a question of “how.”
So, for those who persist in believing that God cannot use them, I want to say three things: First, that God doesn’t call the equipped, God equips the called. Second, the God who shapes the burden for the back also shapes the back for the burden. Third, this:
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about.
– Anonymous