Crooked Sticks -- Hope Chronicles 82

There are lots of amazing things about the gospel:

• God chose an ordinary, uneducated girl rather than a wealthy, educated woman to give birth to His Son
  
• God chose a blue collar man rather than a Rabbi to raise His Son
• God chose to come as a helpless infant rather than a grown man just appearing
• God chose to allow Jesus to know hunger and thirst and temptation
• God chose the cross and the grave
• God chose to know separation from His Son when Jesus cried out "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
• God chose uneducated men and women to start his church

It's all pretty amazing if you think about it. Jesus could have come as a king with a commanding army. His army could have been angels that would make every knee bow. He could have come as good looking but scripture indicates there was nothing to draw us to Him. He could have come with trumpets. He could have ridden Seabiscuit instead of a donkey.

Even today, there are lots of things God does that are amazing. It's amazing that God chooses to work through you and me. C.S. Lewis wrote:

The good news of the Gospel is that God draws straight lines with crooked sticks.

I don't know about you, but I'm a crooked stick. While I can be loving and kind and loyal, my moods are up and down. I can be stubborn. I can have bite in my words. I am a crooked stick. Yet God still uses me. I'm somehow still a part of his plan in spite of all my imperfections. He uses me to encourage the fellow employee at work, to help a child find his mother, to step in with a helping hand. He uses me to point to Him in my own imperfect way.

From one crooked stick to another, isn't it hope that God chooses to use us at all?