We Ain't Nothing, Really -

‘For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

- 1 Cor. 1:26-31

Sometimes having a chainsaw in my hand brings clarity to my thought life.  I’m not really quite sure how it works, but this evening as I was clearing brush I had a revelation…I’m nothing…really.  I was thinking of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians as he was reminding them that often God shows mercy to the nobody.  I cannot run like Usain Bolt.  I don’t have the intellectual capacity of Stephen Hawking.  I don’t have the oratorical genius of Martin Luther King.  I’m not wise, I’m not powerful, I have no noble birth; oftentimes I am foolish, I am frequently weak, and truth be known, God could have done much better by picking a more promising prospect.  It’s like signing a t-ball player to play in the World Series.  A far cry from Nietzsche’s Übermensch, I barely graduated high school. And yet, somehow, God glories in making Himself known through the weak and powerless….

Just let this settle in amongst the synapse…glory is revealed through the nobodies.

It really shouldn’t surprise us though.  A God that considers reconciling the world to Himself through the ignominy of a Cross would be able to find glory in the most unlikely places.  A God that shows grace through the foolishness of preaching and baptismal waters and the bread and cup is a God that will glory in the ordinary and mundane.  He is a God in whom the foolish and ordinary and outcast can believe.  In Christ the nobodies are given righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, because at the end of the day our boasting is found in Another. 

The fact of the matter is…we ain’t nothing, really.

-DJM