Imperfect People

It is amazing to me that God uses imperfect people in His plans and to carry out His will.

The Bible says somewhere that we are like treasures in jars of clay.

Now if God is to use people at all then he must use imperfect people. Generally people may argue about many things but they generally acknowledge the existence of evil and the fact that people are imperfect.

Even the great men of the Bible seem to be loaded with imperfections.

Adam-God tells him not to do one thing and he does it.

Cain-In jealousy kills his brother

Noah-Gets drunk

Jacob-cheats his brother

Moses-murder of an Egyptian

Sampson-love for evil women

Samuel-his children do not follow God

David-adultery and murder

Solomon-captured by wealth, pleasure and worshipped false gods.

Apostles James and John-anger (Sons of Thunder-bring down the hell fire and damnation)

Peter-denied Christ 3 times

Paul-consented to and participated in the death of Stephen

Thus the rub is that sometimes God uses very human people to participate in carrying out his will on the earth. The coin has two sides. When we see imperfections in our spiritual "leaders" we expect better and suffer great disappointment. Part of that disappointment is that we forget that they are "just flesh". We expect better. We expect them to measure up to the high standards of God. Standards, in fact, they we admit that we do not always measure up to.

The other side of the coin is that if God uses imperfect people, that means that He could use us too. That is scary. We stand without excuses.

We can also stand our coin on the edge and claim that God only uses people when they are righteous and holy. Unfortunately, neither history nor experience particularly bear that out. God appears to have the ability to use evil to accomplish good (no, I do not understand how that works), he can use Balaam's ass to speak to Balaam (apparently many of us have heard asses speak from time to time), he can use unbelieving kings to carry out His will. (I wonder how Balaam would have looked on a Harley).

In short, God can use any of us to carry out His will.

It's Sunday in Ozarklandia, it is time to day to stop ridin' and to start dreaming-dreaming that God can use very imperfect people, that God is not finished with us yet, that God is not finished with speaking to people and changing their lives. God can still use imperfect people. After all, He is God. He works with whom he pleases.

HarleyDad Dreaming on Sunday Morn