God Uses Our Weaknesses
These (trials) have come so that your faith -- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire -- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. -- 1 Peter 1:7
God uses ordinary people. That was the message from Pastor Rob yesterday. God uses people like you and me. Well, there goes that excuse that you’re not smart enough, talented enough, gifted enough, or whatever your excuse usually is for not stepping up and out into God’s will.
See, God doesn’t want to use us for our strengths. That would be too easy and, frankly, it wouldn’t accomplish a great deal. People can’t relate to your strengths. They use the same excuses that you and I use: he could accomplish that because he was smart, talented, gifted, etc.
No, God wants to use our weaknesses. That’s where we can really help people. Think about it. When your teenager is breaking your heart, are you more likely to listen to someone who’s been there or to someone who has never had children? You listen to people who have been where you are right now.
I know. It’s hard to do that. Our instinct is to close up and not let others into those vulnerable places of hurt and failure. We want to gloss over the details and make it sound better, easier, than the experience really was.
And we want to hide our role in whatever happened. It’s just so much easier to blame others for our own hang-ups and mistakes than it is to take responsibility for our part, our choices, in whatever happened. But that doesn’t help anyone -- including us.
So how do you help others with your past experiences? Pastor Rob gave three ways. First, be humble. Nobody wants to listen to a know it all. And everybody knows that none of us really have it all together. We may be -- hopefully -- working on it. But we don’t have all the answers.
Secondly, it’s important to be real, transparent and vulnerable. I know. We already admitted that we’d rather avoid all three of those. But when you share your story -- the real, unedited story -- you end up not only helping others but healing yourself.
The last way to help others is not to lecture. Don’t tell others what or how to do whatever it is you’ve decided they need to do. Nobody likes that. All you can do is share your own experience and let others decide how best to live their own lives.
God wants us to use our weaknesses, our failures, our hurts, habits and hang-ups, to help others. Are you willing? He’s calling you today. What are you waiting for?
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