Backwards Thinking

If I looked back on my life I would realize that I had it better than I think I did. Well, at least until our family grew larger, my dad ended up having to take poorer paying jobs This was especially the case when he worked for some churches in full time ministry that didn’t know how to take care of their people.

For most of my junior high and high school years my dad pastored a church that had a Christian school, but this was more of a public type Christian school. The kids were not lifers in the church, so I wasn’t one of those pastor’s kids that had all of the friends and the cliques because of who my dad was and I wasn’t viewed as someone who could help others get out of trouble, only if they did the trouble with me…who’s going to punish the PK?

So I kind of grew up with a complex. I wanted to be popular. I had to reveal my “human” side at school if I wanted to make any friends so they could see that I wasn’t a tattle tale, I was not perfect, etc. I spent several years of my life wanting to belong and wanting to “be somebody!”

Because of the less fortunate up bringing I also desired to have nice things, to have a lot of money, and to live like I didn’t get to live growing up.

However, the more I study God’s Word, the more I see that I was better off as the rejected poor kid. Don’t get me wrong, God is not against people having money and living comfortably, but he is against people putting him aside in order to live a life of fortune and fame. Lately I have been bombarded by scripture that reveals how God uses the nobody’s of the world…check some of them out!

Acts 4:13 – The men that God was using to do great things for him were unlearned and untrained.
2 Corinthians 2:1-5 – Paul came to the people with a simple message, with plain preaching. He said that the “Holy Spirit” was powerful, People came to believe through the power of God, not through human wisdom…or anything man did special.
1 Corinthians 1:25-31 – Paul reminds the people that few of them were considered wise, wealthy, or powerful before God called them. He goes on to explain that God uses things that are foolish, despised, and counted as nothing by the world to bring about his plan.

These are just a few passages of scripture that I have studied lately that helps me understand that it does not matter who I am, what my background is, my education level, or my popularity and wealth levels…if He has a plan for me, it is His power and wisdom that are going to make things happen, not mine. I have learned that I should spend my time submitting myself to God and seeking His anointing rather than trying to be recognized in the eyes of the world.

The fact is, God uses the powerless, the common, the uneducated, those that make the biggest WOW for him when people see what He is using them to do for Him!

Nick