God uses the weak

      “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”  (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

    Australian missionary Dick McClellan tells this story about a young man named Fanta (not the soft drink) from Ethiopia, who felt God’s call to be a missionary himself and take the gospel to the unreached tribes of his country. It was during a district convention among the Wolaitta people that the challenge was made for men and women to volunteer to take the gospel to the many unreached tribes of southern Ethiopia and 20 people stood up, including Fanta.

    The elders of the convention told Fanta to sit down. Two years earlier he had volunteered also but they had told him he was not ready. Dick could see why the elders had told him to sit down. He was a cripple and could only walk by leaning on a stick and hopping forward on his one good leg. Dick talked to the young man after the meeting and told him that he could be a powerful prayer warrior for those who were going. Fanta interrupted Dick. “ ‘That is what the elders said two years ago when I asked them. They told me to go to Bible School and learn. So I went and completed the course. Now I am ready to go. God’s Word burns in my heart. I want to go to the cattle herders along the Bilate River near Lake Abaya. I know they are enemies of the Wolaitta people but they need Jesus too. God has called me to go to them. Please ask the elders again to send me,’ he pleaded.

    I found out later that Fanta had graduated at the top of his class.  Now he pointed with his chin to the hot lowlands and said that the Lord wanted him to take the Gospel of Christ down there to the cattle herders. When I told him that the Oromo clan killed all outsiders- they had murdered the evangelist Omochi…. Fanta was undeterred and seemingly unafraid. He couldn’t run away, nor could he stand and fight either!  ‘God has told me to go, so I must obey,’ he said. He asked me to pray for him, and also to intercede for him with the elders on his behalf. Then slowly he hopped away on his stick.” (Warriors of Ethiopia by Dick McClellan, p 145)

   Fanta then decided that he would go to these dangerous warriors even without the approval of the elders. What was a two-day walk for normal people took him five days. As he approached these people who were known to kill any strangers who approached their area, he was unafraid. If he were to die, he would go to see Jesus and he was being obedient to the call he had received. Fanta discovered an amazing thing about these cattle herders that was different from all the other tribes in the area; they honored cripples! Guided by the Spirit of God, Fanta had found the only tribe where he could safely go, that no other person could go to!

      The people welcomed him and accepted him into their tribe and he was able to hop from camp to camp telling the gospel story. After a year there, he had planted churches in five villages and over 250 people had accepted Christ as their Savior! Many of them came with him to the next convention and as they came singing praises to Jesus Christ, they were walking slowly to keep pace with their leader. The Elders then accepted the rejected candidate at last and sent another national missionary to go back with him! At the publishing of the book, Warriors of Ethiopia, in 2006, there were 20 churches in the Oromo clan, and Fanta, now with a wife and family still serves the Lord faithfully there.

   What has the Lord called you to do? To be a witness to your family, to teach a Bible Study, to minister to prisoners, to teach in AWANA, to tell your neighbor about Jesus, to forgive someone who has wronged you, to serve in the nursery, or even go to a foreign land? Whatever it is, God will equip you and He will go with you! In fact, He will do all the work! You just have to do your part, and obey.

   “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.” (1 Samuel 15:22)

PRAY:

1.     Lord help me to be obedient the things you have taught me in your Word. To Love the Lord with all my heart, to forgive, to love my enemies, to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse and much more.

2.     Lord help me to listen carefully for your direction and to be quick to obey when You call on me to minister to others.

3.     Lord, thank you for loving me and adopting me as your son or daughter and to never forget what you did for me on Calvary.