BEYOND HUMANITY’S FLAWS | April 2010

Waiting in the wings of our human flaws, failures, and extremities is a superior power that is ready and willing to be perfected in our weaknesses. The very fact that the scriptures describe God’s most productive and glorious operational mechanisms as involving persons and things that are deemed foolish, base, despised, ignoble, and nonentities, should give us enough reason to pause and take a second look at the conventional perceptions and wisdom, which influence us when it comes to working with people or giving them opportunities for fruitfulness. We allow ourselves to be influenced by the world’s standards, and tend to pass over those we deem “unqualified”. We oftentimes immobilize ourselves into inactivity and barrenness as a church and as individuals due to these perceptions, which when examined in the light of God’s word, fail to measure up.

We gloss over or refuse help to people, because they fail to measure up to our myopic perceptions about spirituality, eloquence, stature, and education. In situations where God is ready and willing to give more honor to the weaker vessel to facilitate a holistic empowerment and health for the general body (I Corinth. 12:24-25), man reaches out with judgment and condescension; and where God seeks to  make His power perfect through our weaknesses, man uses the weakness as fodder to legitimize rejection. Where God would manifest grace and call out a “Cyrus” with the words, “I have surnamed thee though thou hast not known me” (Isaiah 46:1-4); man would take to profiling and raise barriers to impede their progress. Some in the pew have also chosen to saddle themselves with self-defeating perceptions as the Israelites did before entering Canaan (I Samuel 16:1-7; Numbers 13:31-33). Consequently, a lot of believers in the Lord are sitting idle in the pews in our churches.

God has gone to great lengths in scripture and through the ages to let His people know that the flaws of humanity do not impede the workings of His grace. That is why He called Abram even though he belonged to a clan of idol worshippers; and made room for Rahab in the family tree of Jesus, even though she was not a Hebrew, and was best known as a harlot in Jericho; because if He was to look out for the perfect vessel, none of us would qualify (Joshua 23:2-3; 6; Matthew 1:5; Psalm 130:3-4; Isaiah 64:6; Romans 7:18; II Cor. 3:5; 4:7).
It is not about us, but rather about Him, and what He chooses to do with our insignificant selves; so that we might learn to love, fear, and reverence Him in all humility. That is why He renders useless the strengths we bring to His table, before He fills us with His power for service, as portrayed in the story of Moses; a man described by the bible as “mighty in words and deeds”, but who at the burning bush pleaded “ineloquence” in his attempt to escape the divine commission (Acts 7:22; Exodus 4:10-13). Jesus by-passed the religiously trained and gifted in His time to select a motley bunch of fishermen, a hated tax collector, and someone He Himself described as a devil, to turn the then world upside down. Their secret was that they had been with Jesus, and He in turn worked with them (John. 6:70; 21:1-3: Acts 4:13; Acts 17:6; Mark 16:20).

It is time for us to look beyond our flaws as humans, to the Holy One’s perfection, power, and grace; because God’s power is designed for perfection in weak and deficient instruments/human vessels; and by His power we can do everything He commissions us to do (II Cor. 5: 21; Ephesians 2:2; Acts 1:8; Luke 1:34-37; I Sam. 10:5-13; Isaiah 40:29-31; Luke 5:31-32; Romans 8:26; II Cor. 12:9; Philippians 4:13;  II Tim. 2:2; Exod. 4:14-16 ). He also knows how to tie us up with an “Aaron” to complement our deficiencies if need be. All He is asking from us is a step of obedience in faith. The weaknesses and extremities of our humanity are designed to facilitate divine empowerment and achievement; and so let us rise up and do whatever the Lord is prompting us to do, and the God of Heaven will prosper us; for it is “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord” (Isaiah 40:29; II Cor. 3:5; 12:9; Nehemiah 2:20; Zechariah 4:6).