For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. [Philippians 4:13 (NLT)]
Although it was noon during the heat of the day when most people would be resting, the woman came to the well for water. Perhaps, because she’d been married five times and was living with a man not her husband, the other women in the village made it clear that she wasn’t welcome in the early morning or late evening when they gathered there. Nevertheless, it was with this woman that Jesus had the longest one-on-one conversation recorded in Scripture. It was to this Samaritan woman that Jesus revealed He was the Living Water she so desperately needed.
Throughout Scripture, we find God using those who seem least qualified to do His work. An unnamed woman of questionable character became His first evangelist in Samaria and a Gentile man so possessed by demons that he’d been chained and shackled in a cave was chosen to evangelize in the Decapolis. Abraham, a coward who twice gave his wife to other men to save himself, was God’s unlikely choice to be the father of all nations and his wife Sarah, an infertile old woman, was chosen to be the mother of those nations. God chose an old man with a speech impediment to demand that Pharaoh let His people go and a shepherd boy with a slingshot to fell a giant and lead a nation. A man so afraid of the Midianites that he hid in his winepress while threshing wheat and called his clan the weakest and himself the least of them, was chosen by God to defeat Israel’s oppressors. Chosen to spread the gospel to all nations was a Pharisee who hated Christ’s followers and silently watched while Stephen was stoned by an angry mob. A prostitute, a widow who masqueraded as a prostitute, a hated Moabite, an adulteress, and an unwed teen from an insignificant village were chosen as part of His Son’s family tree. To bear witness to the empty tomb, God chose women: people who couldn’t even testify in court!
Were any of these people qualified for the role they were called to play? Probably not, but that didn’t matter because God will qualify the ones he calls. Can we fell giants with a slingshot or lead an outnumbered army to victory? Probably not…unless God calls us to do that very thing! When we answer His call, He will equip the unequipped, enable the unable, strengthen the weak, embolden the meek, empower the powerless, encourage the discouraged, and do the extraordinary with the ordinary.
I recently read about Derek Black, a young man who grew up immersed in white nationalism. The heir apparent to the WN movement, by the age of twenty, he’d already created a racist website for children and was co-hosting a national radio show advocating prejudice and hostility toward blacks, Jews, immigrants, and other minorities. During college, Black gradually recognized the ugliness of his beliefs but it wasn’t confrontation, heated debate, or ostracism that led to his transformation; it was the hand of friendship!
Many of us have friends and relatives whose memories are declining (and some of us may be those people). As my mother-in-law’s memory started failing, she rewrote history with what we called “wishful memories” and “selective forgetting.” Since her memories became rosier and happier as time passed, it really didn’t matter if nearly a century’s worth of memories were accurate or not; they were good ones. Happy to see her enjoying her version of the past, we ignored faulty memories that were of no consequence.
With each new day feeling like yesterday, we decided to watch the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. In it, the discontented TV weatherman Phil Connors, played by Bill Murray, is trapped in a time loop and keeps reliving February 2. At first, he takes advantage of never having to reap the consequences of his selfish actions but grows tired of his hedonistic life. When the predictability of the day causes boredom, depression, and cynicism to set in, he commits suicide several times—only to wake again and again on the same February 2. Eventually, Phil comes to grips with his situation and decides to make the most of it. Among other things, he learns to to play jazz piano, speak French, memorize the life story of everyone in town, sculpt ice, and master the art of flipping cards into an upturned hat. As he betters himself, he begins to better the lives of the people around him. The time loop eventually ends when the changed man finally gets the day right by caring more about others than himself.
Yesterday, I wrote about koinonia or what I called the art of Christian community. Writing about Christian fellowship, however, can be easier than actually living in it. Just as a family has a vast array of different personalities, temperaments, and gifts, so does the church. In fact, with our sheltering in place, social distancing, working from home, having children home all day, and parks, playgrounds, gyms, and beaches all closed, some of us might be having more difficulty maintaining a spirit of fellowship with one another in our own homes than in our churches!
Since they’re not hard and fast rules, some proverbs are contradictory. Perhaps the most glaring contradiction (and one non-believers love to mention) is found in Proverbs 26:4-5. First, we’re told not to answer the foolish argument of fools but then we’re told to do that very thing!
Devotions of the Heart 