Sunday, July 28th, 2024
My Faith Testimony
When I was a kid, I often thought to myself, "Someday I'll show them. I'm going to be famous!" I remember thinking this in my grade four classroom. That would have been Mrs. Steele. "I'll be someone important, and then they'll wish they had been nice to me."
That's quite the thing for a kid to say, and certainly not very godly: there's some pride in that statement, and I was trusting in my own strength. Come on, I was eight years old.
But I want to take you back to those days, to show you how God uses the weakest of us for His glory.
You see, I was what you might call a misfit. I was a scrawny kid with big buck teeth. I wanted to be invited to birthday parties. I wanted to be picked "not last" for school teams. If I had been born in 1989 instead of 1969, perhaps I would have been given a diagnosis of ADHD. Social interactions didn't come naturally to me. I was hyper-focused on the things that interested me to the exclusion of all else. I didn't really fit in, so that would make me a misfit.
I didn't know why other kids liked to beat me up after school. I guess because I was different. I'd stay in the classroom at the end of day, waiting for all the buses to leave so I could walk home without being chased down the street. Even girls beat me up.
Yes, it's a bit embarrassing, and I'm sorry to drag you through this sad story; but I am not looking for sympathy. Rather, I am trying to showcase the way God so often chooses the outcast in this world to do His work, because for some amazing reason, God uses me!
Part of the purpose of a personal testimony is to be vulnerable enough about oneself, so that people who are in a similar situation can see a pathway for themselves to be used by God, and brought into a restorative relationship with Him. If that person is you--if you also feel like an outsider, or if you can relate to some of my experiences, then I hope you leave here knowing that God loves weaklings. God chooses misfits. God uses outcasts.
Back to my childhood.
I think my strangeness was a little embarrassing for my dad. I think he wanted me to be more self-aware, more normal, to try to fit in with my peers. I understand. Wouldn't any person want the best for their child? I'm sure it distressed both of my parents that I was bullied at school. A parent wants their kid to be liked.
Dad tried to teach me how to fight; how to stick up for myself, but I just couldn't imagine hitting back. He tried to encourage me to be good in sports, and put me on soccer and baseball teams. He took me to the diamond to practice batting and throwing and catching. If you've ever seen the baseball movie, "Bad News Bears," then you might get an idea of my skill level. I was more likely to trip over my own feet, than to catch a ball.
I attended Harrowsmith Free Methodist church in the 70s and 80s, so some of you remember me when I was a kid. You may recall my geeky awkwardness. Somehow God has used me despite my many shortcomings. He's chosen to fill this broken vessel with the power of his Spirit for His glory, and not mine. I'm a nobody apart from the work He's done in me. I'm an outcast. And yet this outcast who is standing in front of you has influence he didn't earn, and is part of God's work in the world!
How humbling!
By the way I describe it, you might think I was depressed all the time, but it wasn't all bad. I was the kind of kid that would rather create Lego gadgets and Mechano machines anyway. Lots of solitary activities appealed to me, like reading, designing board games, sketching, or building a tree-house, even making maps of my own worlds. My imagination was quite entertaining! The rejection I felt was often the inspiration for all kinds of creative outlet, even song writing.
Still, the inner part of me wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be important. I wanted to be loved.
Of course, I knew God loved me... and I didn't realise it until years later, but God also had a plan for me. That has become really obvious in review of some events in my life.
In the summer before grade five, I think it was 1980, I fell out of a tree and badly dislocated my arm. We were an hour from Kingston General Hospital, and my elbow was in really bad shape, and the bones were all busted up, the nerves torn out of place. I had a full arm cast and two pins placed in my elbow to hold things together. I didn't find out until I was an adult that doctors warned my parents that I may never use my right arm again.
I hope that causes you to worship God! Look how he has healed me so that I might spend a lifetime worshipping him at the piano! Every pounding chord is a testament to his work in me! God had something planned for me, even from those early, nerdy days. God has something planned for each of us! God has something planned for you, even through you pain and difficulty, even in your trauma and darkness.
High school was a lot better for me, partly because there was a bigger pool of students to choose from. The computer room was full of geeks just like me. I met other non-sporty kids in the arts department. There was even an Inter-School-Christian-Fellowship group I joined.
But at home, the friction with my dad increased a lot. I was lazy. I would break things and hide the evidence. I fought with my sister. I forgot to do my chores, "disappearing," right when I was needed. I was a typical difficult teenager.
Dad was under a lot of stress too, and our relationship got volatile. He faced financial strain, marital strain, and his own difficult childhood didn't give him the tools he needed. As many of you may know, it's really hard to break those generational cycles. Things got violent at times.
Fortunately, our relationship is now restored, and I love my dad dearly. Jesus brought healing to both of us, and this experience has also been an indication of the power of God to transform lives.
For some reason, rather than make me blame God for my pain, this conflict drew me deeper into relationship with Him. I embraced God as my actual Father. When I felt discouraged and disappointed, God spoke words of encouragement to me. When I felt lonely and hopeless, I found hope in God's perfection. When I made mistakes (and I've made a lot of mistakes), God forgave me.
Jeremiah 30, verse 17 says: For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast...
You see, God loves the outcast. He loves the overlooked, the downtrodden, the misfit. His heart goes out to those who are suffering. He wants to restore and heal us, especially because we are outcasts.
This is important to God, so much so that Jesus asked us to love outcasts just as he did, and to look for opportunities to love the unlovable.
In case you need more evidence, the Bible is full of stories in which God selects the outcast in which to frame his glory! Consider the following misfits:
Rahab, the prostitute was obviously not a high-status person, and more importantly to the people of the time, she was not part of God's chosen people of Israel. Still, she was saved from destruction, and used by God when she helped God's spies in the land escape over the wall.
An outcast, used to reveal God's glory!
The Samaritan woman who spoke with Jesus at the well - although she had many failed marriages, and was currently living with a man who was not her husband, Jesus showed love and compassion to her, offered forgiveness to her, and this transformative experience brought many people from Samaria to faith.
An outcast, used to reveal God's glory!
Joseph, seems to be full of pride and self-importance, self-aggrandising, and not accepted by his own brothers! He Lorded his favoured position over them. He boasted of his dreams in which all his brothers would bow to him! They were so tired of it all that they first threw him in a well, and then later sold him into slavery. His faithfulness to God, and his dedication to integrity allowed him to be the reason Egypt, and his own family were saved from famine.
An outcast, used to reveal God's glory!
Or consider the bleeding woman who was healed when she touched Jesus' cloak. She had been unclean for years in the eyes of the religious, which would have meant she would not be welcome among the holy and righteous who were careful to keep the laws of cleanliness. Her faith in Jesus brought her healing, and her story has been remembered and retold ever since then!
An outcast, used to reveal God's glory!
There is also Leah, the despised wife. Her husband Jacob was tricked into marrying her, when he really was in love with her sister! I can't imagine bearing the insult of that experience, and I'm sure she felt like an outcast. Despite this, she was nevertheless blessed with many children who were the first people of Israel!
An outcast, used to reveal God's glory!
Don't forget Esther, who was an orphan. Despite being without parents, she eventually became the King's favourite concubine, then his cherished wife, and later, through her bold bravery, became the path to redemption from exile for all of the Jews.
An outcast, used to reveal God's glory!
Of course, there are dozens more. I don't need to layout their stories, because you all know them. Consider adulterous David, tax-collecting Matthew, arrogant Samson, weasley Zacchaeus, disbelieving Thomas, headstrong Peter, murderous Paul, the list goes on and on.
There's a theme here. God chooses the outcast, the lowly, the broken, the hurting, the overlooked, the failing, the mocked, and even the judged to bring glory to Himself!
Don't think of yourself as too weak or too broken to serve him! Your weakness puts you exactly where God needs you to be so that you may best reflect his glory!
An outcast, used to reveal God's glory!
We look to these Biblical characters as heroes, but in many ways they are anti-heros. They aren't remembered because they were virtuous. They are remembered because despite their weaknesses, God used them as vessels to bring about His plan for the world.
Let's look honestly at ourselves. Are any of us virtuous? Maybe, but our virtue is not worth very much. God is glorified when he transforms our weaknesses into his strength!
God is building an army of outcasts. He wants his glory to be magnified throughout all the earth, so that everyone can worship Him! He wants the humble and rejected to turn to him for help so he can display his grace and mercy in us.
Isaiah 56:8 says, "The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, 'I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.'"
...and in Psalm 147:2, it says, "The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel."
That's us. Because really, we're all outcasts. Who among us here isn't weak? Are we loved and accepted by the world, or mocked because of our testimonies of faith?
For those who don't see yourself as an outcast, or who think you've been spared a lot of the personal heartache and pain, let me talk to you directly for a moment. Maybe you understand the way society works, and have found a way to be an insider in a world that creates these partitions. Can you see any ways you have fallen short of what God has asked of you? Recall that Jesus told the insiders in his day that he came not to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.
If we cannot see the places we need Jesus, then we can become almost deaf to his call.
I'd like to encourage all of us to get in touch with the way we need Jesus. Yes, it may be shallow at first, but start there. He will give us His grace to cooperate with salvation. If you are to follow him, you need to begin walking, so start to walk in His way.
Identify your weakness. Begin to work out your faith with fear and trembling. When you are weak, He is strong.
I invite you to look differently on your shortcomings. Think about the ways you have failed, and instead of hiding them, or hiding from them, bring them into the light, and let God use these failures as a way to shine through you! He will make all things new! He will make YOU new.
For those of us who see our own faults, and find them as stumbling blocks to faith, I hope my testimony today will help you to see things from a different perspective. Pour your life out for God. Give everything to Him. Don't just look at your failures as an ugly mess, but rather as a starting point for the Father to make you more like Jesus.
I will end with this favourite scripture from Romans 8, verse 28: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."
Amen