Hebrews 11:34  “… whose weakness was turned to strength.”

Think of this in relation to Christian service. During the past century few biographies have influenced young Christians more than that of the great missionary pioneer Hudson Taylor. What was his secret? Here it is, in his own words: “The Lord was looking for a man weak enough to use, and He found me.”

D. L. Moody also aptly observed, “We may easily be too big for God to use, but never too small.”

Job 28 tells us about the way of the wind and the water and the lightning. The way of the wind is that of easiest motion. The way of the water is that of easiest coursing. The way of the lightning is that of easiest yielding. In other words, the wind and the water and the lightning take the line of least resistance.

So too in our lives, the Spirit of God always seeks the line of least resistance to the will of God. It is the absence of such resistance which gives the Holy Spirit His opportunity, and transforms weakness into strength. The Apostle Paul knew this better than most:

1 Corinthians 1:27-28  “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are.”

You may say that you are not made of the stuff for heroism and service. Then here is just the very army in which you can enlist! The fact is that most of us are disqualified, not through weakness, but through a deep, subtle resistance in our human ego to the divine will. Before God can bless or use us as He wishes, He has to break this resistance down.

There are classic illustrations of this in the Bible. See that strange Wrestler from the unseen world as He struggles with Jacob at the brook Jabbok. Through the years God has been trying to break down that ego resistance in Jacob, as in Abraham and Isaac, but now nothing will suffice but a crisis-wrestle in which Jacob is made a lame and limping man.

See the resistance which had to be overcome in Moses before God could use him to rescue the covenant people from Egypt. “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? … They will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice… I am not eloquent, but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue … Oh my Lord, send someone else.”

Or see the resistance in Gideon before God could use him to deliver Israel from the oppression of the Midianites. When the Angel of the Lord appears to him, he protests.

Once our resistance to the divine will is broken down, then what wonderful things God can do with the weak and the despised! Moses, what is that in your hand? – a shepherd’s rod, despised by the Egyptians. Yet that rod in the hand of a yielded Moses lays Egypt low, divides the sea, and leads Israel to freedom.

Shamgar, what is that in your hand? – an ox goad.

Jael, what is that in Your hand? – a tent peg.

Gideon, what is that in your hand? – an earthen pitcher.

Samson, what is that in your hand? – the jawbone of an ass.

David, what is that in your hand? – a sling and five smooth stones.

God always uses the weak, the foolish, the despised. That opens the door wide to all of us – and we will be astonished at what God can do in us and through us when we remove all that might resist His sovereign will in our lives.