Sunday marked the beginning of a new "school year" for Vida220. We received 12 new students: 4 from northern Ohio, 2 from Mexico, and 6 from here in Costa Rica, 3 of which are from the indigenous reserve in Talamanca. It's a huge blessing to have such a diverse group of four very distinct cultures come together with the same goal: to walk in a more intimate relationship with God.
I was reminded recently of a phrase the I heard years ago: God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called. That's actually a phrase that I am quite often reminded of because of the fact that I frequently feel completely unequipped to do the things that God calls me to do. So I sat down a few days ago to search for stories from the Bible that demonstrate the truth of this phrase and I came up with a good list of them, which is by no means, extensive.
Moses—A Hebrew boy born in Egypt during a time of great
oppression against the Hebrew people. According to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, Moses
should’ve been thrown into the Nile River moments after being born. But God had
a different plan. Moses was hidden for the first three months of his life, and
then when he could no longer be hidden he was set afloat in a basket on the
river to meet his fate. Who finds him and picks him up? Pharaoh’s daughter, of
all people. Now, you would probably think that the daughter of the very man who
commanded that the lives of all Hebrew baby boys be taken at birth would be the
first to follow that command. But she doesn’t. Instead, she sends Moses back to
his own mother (whether or not she was aware of the fact that she’d sent him
back to his birth-mother we don’t know) to be nursed until he can go and live
with Pharaoh’s daughter, becoming her son…Pharaoh’s grandson. Years down the
road Moses is watching his people, the Hebrews, suffer as slaves to Pharaoh and
out of anger he murders an Egyptian (little did he know, God would later use
him give us the commandment “Do not murder”). So Moses runs away and hides, and
God soon appears to him, speaking from the burning bush. God asks Moses to go
back to Egypt, the place he ran from, to lead the Hebrews out of slavery. What
was Moses’ response? “Who am I to go back to these people? They’ll never listen
to me. I can’t speak well. Please, send someone else.” But God doesn’t let him
off the hook. So Moses goes and with the help of his brother, Aaron, he
confronts Pharaoh. Through Moses, God performs many miracles and signs. He
sends ten terrible plagues, showing His great power and authority over all of
creation. Pharaoh finally lets God’s people go, but not without putting up a
fight and in the process loses his entire army in the Red Sea which God’s
people crossed through on dry land, with the sea forming walls on both sides of
them. All the while they’re being led by Moses, this man who should’ve been
killed in the first hours of his life. His story goes on from there as he leads
the Israelites in the desert. He gives us many great examples of leadership,
though he was far from perfect. His story is just one of many stories which show
us how God equips the people He calls.
Joseph—A young boy, sold by his brothers, who has what we
might call “bad luck”. But everything that happened to him had to happen so
that one day he would be responsible for saving the lives of thousands of
people during a famine.
Ruth—A widow who ends up being mentioned in the genealogy of
Jesus Christ.
David—A simple, shepherd boy turned into a mighty king.
Esther—A Jewish woman living under exile in Persia, who
eventually becomes the wife of the Persian king. She then saves the entire
Jewish race from being destroyed by taking some very risky actions.
Jonah—A rebellious
prophet who took a life-saving message to a people at the point of being
destroyed.
Mary—A simple girl who would become the mother of the Son of
God. Can you imagine the pressure she must have felt when the angel Gabriel
appeared to her and said, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor
with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall
call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most
High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he
will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no
end,”?
The disciples—They were fishermen, tax-collectors, some of
them were probably hated by a lot of people. But Jesus called them to leave
everything, follow him, and learn from him. All along the way we see him
equipping them to go out and fulfill the calling to go and make disciples, to
teach them, baptize them, and do even greater things than Jesus himself had
done.
Paul—A man who for years hated and persecuted Christians.
But then Jesus got a hold of his life and he became quite possibly the greatest
example of a life fully surrendered to Christ, willing to make any sacrifice to
see the Kingdom of God furthered and expanded.
I can almost guarantee you that none of these men and
women felt equipped to do what they knew God was calling them to do. But God
uses them in mighty ways despite their lack of knowledge, strength, power,
position, number of friends, eloquence, even despite their lack of willingness.
These are just a few examples of people
who never planned to change history, who never imagined that their stories
would be written in a book that millions of people read each day, even now,
thousands of years later.
As we look at these stories written thousands of years ago
it might be easy to think that God used to do that kind of thing, but He would
never do that with me. The truth however, is that the God we serve today is the
exact same God as these people served, and He’s still surprising normal, simple people
with great callings, far beyond their human abilities or knowledge. But God
always has and always will equip the people that He calls.
