Underdog!

So, this past Tuesday was another great Kynetic meeting! Amber brought it this time with the topic of how God uses ordinary people to accomplish His extraordinary plans. First off, a visual demonstration: a Hello-Kitty glass representing God's plan for our lives. First it's filled with ice -- which is us submitting ourselves to His plan. Great, but us ourselves doesn't really do much to fill the glass (I mean, it's great and all, but there are gaps and air bubbles and all that fun stuff). Then water (Biblical example of the Holy Spirit) is poured in over the glass, and voila! God's plan is completely fulfilled! What's more, we (the ice) float to the top, riding on the Holy Spirit! Neat, huh?

We looked at 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 which talks about God taking us through the difficult times in our lives. Not only does He do that, it says (duh), but he also bring people into our lives that need the very encouragement we've gained from God leading us through our problems. And even further, it reminds us that while, yes, we have to go through hard times, they are not going to outweigh the good times "of His healing comfort" that we receive as well! The point? God takes care of us through our problems and then uses us to take care of other people through theirs!

Sometimes we focus on the difficulties we been through, or how we messed up and made mistakes in the past, instead of focusing on what God wants us to do now and in the future. But God doesn't look at us that way. (Hallelujah!) When Moses tried to explain all the ways he was wrong for the job, God just kept reminding him that this was what He had planned for Moses and He would take him through it. Amber pointed out Ephesians 2:7-10 as explanation -- God doesn't use people who think they might get away with acting like they accomplished the plan on their own. He uses people who recognize that He's the only One who can accomplish any of this, and so they follow His plan. They're always the underdog, but they're teachable. They just showed up, trusted Him, and followed his instruction. Seriously, think about the people involved in the major plot points throughout the Bible. Abraham. Moses. Rahab. Deborah. Gideon. Ruth. Samuel. David. Esther. Mary. Paul. Even Jesus was considered by His hometown to be nothing special. The Pharisees, who were the leaders of the Jewish community, were unteachable, and were not remotely involved in Jesus' ministry (except as examples of what not to do). It was the sinners, the outcasts, who got the chance to be part of that history.

Sometimes our uncertainty about the outcome holds us back from following God's steps. We're worried that we're not capable, or even worthy, of accomplish what God expects, so we stand still or step back instead of stepping forward. But the fulfillment of faith is taken away when no faith needs to be used in a situation. If life was so obvious that we knew everything that was going to happen, would we even bother living? As Amber said, where is the fun in playing it safe? There's no life where there is no discovery and experience. Being told facts does not equal gaining experience. God does not tell us everything because He wants us to experience the life He's planned for us.

There's more to life's outcomes than the obvious appearances. Amber related it back to stories in C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia." Everyone was riding high on Aslan's victory when the kids left Narnia. But when they returned at the beginning of the second story the people of Narnia were living with the assumption that Aslan had left them -- he'd been gone for generations. It was only when Lucy began to diligently seek him and refuse to give up looking for him, and finally found him, that everyone realized that Aslan had never left -- and he had never left off being the Rescuer of Narnia.

It all comes down, of course, to what we think about our own ability vs. what we think about God's ability to use us. Elizabeth reminded us about Pastor describing grace as the anointing to accomplish God's plan, and that according to the Bible each of us has been given a measure of that. Going back to our previous messages (see how I slid that plug in there? nice.), sometimes God's telling us to wait because we're not ready yet, whether we're unteachable or whether we're in fear of failing, or even in fear of not being accepted in success. Kevin pointed out that it took Moses 40 years to unlearn all the wrong ideas he had about how he was to accomplish God's plan. (And everybody's going, God, please don't let it take that long with me.) Only then did he have the right, teachable attitude -- one of humility, which, as Dayton noted, is another common theme among the people God uses. Pride thinks it already knows. Humility has learned that it doesn't already know.