Nobody's Perfect

Some have posed the question, “Why would God use people like ______ to do His work?” Fill in the blank with just about any character in the Bible you would like. For example, Abraham, father and patriarch of all of Israel, the man to whom the Promise was given, tried to pass off Sarah as his sister once because he was afraid that he would be killed by a man or men that wanted Sarah for themselves. Of course, the man that he feared most was indeed attracted to Sarah, but, since he believed that Abraham and Sarah were brother and sister, he just took her. It turns out that he wasn’t the kind of guy that would have killed a man just to take his wife, anyway, but even if he had been, shouldn’t Abraham have trusted God to protect him? Of course he should have. So, basically what we have learned about Abraham is that he suffered from cowardice. So why would God use someone like Abraham?

If that were not bad enough, apparently Abraham was so ashamed of himself for his actions that he didn’t tell Isaac about it. Many years later, Isaac and Rebekah were in the same city, Gerar, under the same king, Abimelech, and Isaac told the same lie for the same reason. So why would God use someone like Isaac?

When David was king over all of Israel, he found himself attracted to a woman that was one of his neighbors, in fact, she was the wife of one of David’s mighty men. He had her brought into his home, and later had her husband killed, so that he could marry her. Why would God use someone like David?

Peter denied the Lord three times, after promising Jesus that he would follow Him into death if it came to that. I can somewhat understand that Peter’s world had just been rocked; he followed Jesus for three years, and, even though Jesus tried to warn him what was coming, Peter was not ready for the arrest. While he was trying to figure it out, to reconcile what he thought he had known with what had just happened, some people started talking to him about being one of Jesus’ disciples. Why would God use someone like Peter?
To be honest, we could go down the list of all the people in the Bible, and they all have faults, except for Jesus Himself. Some of them were fortunate enough to not have their faults actually mentioned in the Scriptures, but every one of them had faults. Paul even talked about his thorn in the flesh; how he sought God to remove it, but God finally told him that he needed the thorn to keep him from being exalted above measure (in other words, God didn’t want Paul to get a big head).

So why is it, that all through the Bible, God used imperfect people to carry out His perfect will? Let me ask you a question: What other kind of people would He have used? The Bible tells us that all have sinned, and all have come short of the glory of God. Let me ask you another question: If God hadn’t been able to use imperfect people all through the Bible, then how would He ever manage to be able to use you? Or, for that matter, how could I believe that God could ever use me? To be honest, I still struggle with that concept. But, if you and I wait for someone perfect to come along and do the work of God, we are going to have a long wait. He has already been here, and He has left it up to us, now. We just need to open up and let Him work through us.