Dash of Sass: Never Too Ordinary for God

Quotes of the Day:

God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the lives of others. ~Paul David Tripp

God doesn’t use ‘superstars’ to do His most significant work. God uses ordinary people. ~Unknown

Expect to be used by God, no matter how humble your circumstances may be. ~Pastor Jim Feeney

The Single Woman Says:

I’m reading the book Jesus: the One and Only by Beth Moore right now, as I am utterly fascinated by Jesus and His brief life on earth and I long to know Him better. So much about His ministry and His 33 years spent walking the earth as God incarnate in a human body fascinates me – nothing so much as His practice of using common, ordinary, even hopelessly flawed people to carry out some of His greatest works. And not only that, His habit of using WOMEN to bring about some of His most impressive miracles in a time where women were to be seen and not heard is downright radical! I think one could even argue that Jesus was the first feminist. He came to walk the earth in the first place through the body of a very ordinary, young, likely even frightened girl – his mother, Mary. Mary isn’t set apart in the Bible as doing anything great or miraculous in the years before she gave birth to Jesus, yet God chose her as the vessel to bring His son into the world. How mind-blowing is that?!? And then time and time and time again, Jesus illustrated His power and love and mercy and grace through the lives and experiences of imperfect, even damaged women. Mary and Martha (Mary was a worrywart), Mary Magdelene (she was demon possessed), the woman at the well (she was an adulteress), the woman with the issue of blood (she was diseased and in biblical times, considered “unclean”)…and so on. Jesus wasn’t shy about walking with these women, redeeming these women, healing these women, and using these women in all their weakness to illustrate His great power. In all that I have learned and am learning about Jesus, that is perhaps the most awe-inspiring thing. He doesn’t look for the perfect, the “arrived,” the ones who “have it all together.” No, His eyes roam the earth looking for anyone who is willing to stand up and say “Use me. My life is yours. Allow me to be your vessel.”

I say all this to encourage you today that wherever you are in your journey, however flawed or imperfect or even damaged you may be…you are enough in God’s eyes. Other people might pass you over in their search for “something better” but to God, you are beautifully and wonderfully eloquent.  All you have to be willing to do is take your mess, your struggles, your brokenness, and lay it at His feet. He specializes in making beauty from ashes. To others you might be too much or too little or too big or too small or too loud or too quiet or too honest or too guarded, but to Him you are JUST RIGHT. When others rejected you, He has been waiting for you with baited breath. No alterations or upgrades or makeovers required. You can go to Him, just as you are. He knows every sentence of your story and has great plans for you in all your imperfect glory.