I sometimes feel like my past disqualifies me from doing anything significant. Who am I to represent the Name of Jesus? What good can come from me? As true as that may be for me and all of us, that kind of thinking is the easy way out.
In my devotional reading this morning, I came across the familiar story of Cain killing Abel. I wondered why God spared Cain. Why does He spare the guilty? He spared David after Uriah’s death, the apostle Paul, who persecuted the church, and the thief on the cross. What mercy!
Enoch walked with God
After reading about Cain, I kept thinking about how God continues to work through deeply broken beginnings. Cain fathered a son named Enoch, and generations later, another Enoch would walk so closely with God that he “was not,” for God took him (Genesis 5:24). God’s redemptive purposes continued despite humanity’s earliest failures, ultimately culminating in Jesus.
So I guess if Jesus can use the stained history of Cain, He can use me. And He can use you, too.
The easy way out, excuse my way
I’ve found it often feels easier to excuse my way out of believing God wants to use me. That is the easy way out, it doesn’t require any faith. Instead, why not let Him use you. There’s no telling what He will do if you dare to trust Him.
Have you wrestled with this? How is your own wrestling match with the Lord going?
