God really can use you

Do you ever feel insignificant? When we look at the situations around us, they seem so huge and we wonder what difference we could ever make. And then there are really gifted people already doing all they can - and how can we compare ourselves with them? We have no experience. We have no training. Or maybe we've grown up listening to messages telling us that we're no good at anything, and we've heard it so often that we've started to believe it. Or maybe we've started to believe that because we come from a certain background we have nothing to offer. And so we keep our heads down, we don't get involved, and we believe that God can't possibly want to involve us in his plans.

The next part of the Elijah story (1 Kings 17) shows how God uses the most unlikely people in the most unlikely places. In fact, the more unlikely it is, from a human perspective, the better it is from God's perspective, because then we learn to rely on him, and depend on him, rather than ourselves. It is in our weakness that God demonstrates his strength and power.

From Elijah's cultural/religious background the widow at Zarephath would be the last person he would go to in order to find provision in a time of drought and famine. She was a foreigner. She was a woman. She was a widow. She lived in the heartland of Baal worship (see yesterday). And yet this widow was exactly the person that God had spoken to and wanted to use to provide for Elijah in a miraculous way. The most unlikely person in the most unlikely place.

When it comes to doing amazing things for God maybe you see yourself as the most unlikely person. That's great - because that's exactly where God wants us to start from - because it's ultimately not about us - it's about God working in us, and through us, as we make ourselves available to him, and are obedient to his call.