Dead Wood and Consecration

Read something super encouraging today that I want to share with everyone. I found this book by Francis Schaeffer called "No Little People." It addresses and scripturally demolishes the idea that there are big, important people and tiny, insignificant, replaceable people. I only read a couple chapters from it but the first one struck home with me. In it, he goes through the story of Moses from the burning bush to just before his death and the Israelites progression into the land of Canaan. But it takes an angle I had NEVER considered before. Rather than telling the story of Moses, it tells the story of the shepherd's staff he took with him. At the burning bush Moses asks God what he should do if the people deny that God came to him and refuse to believe him. God tells Moses to throw his staff on the ground and it turns into a snake. Even Moses recoils in fear when that happens. How is this miracle possible? How are the 10 plagues which are brought on by use of the staff possible? How was it possible to part the Red Sea and cause the waters to return, drowning Pharaoh's army? How was it possible to use the staff to bring water from the rock? The secret is that at the burning bush, ownership of the rod transferred from Moses to God. The rod became a tool in God's hand to use in performing all these miracles. He used it to prove His power to Pharaoh, to punish the Egyptians, to deliver his people, to provide water when the people were thirsty, and to lead and guide his people. It was an instrument in the hands of Almighty God. The clincher in this chapter came when Schaeffer said that, if God could use a dead piece of wood to demonstrate His glory on this earth, how much more could He use a human being, even when the human being struggled and was weak and had very small amounts of physical, spiritual, and psychological energy? And here is my absolute favorite quote from this chapter:

"Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood. 'God so used a stick of wood' can be a banner cry for each of us. Though we are limited and weak in talent, physical energy, and psychological strength, we are not less than a stick of wood. But as the rod of Moses had to become the rod of God, so that which is me must become the me of God. Then I can become useful in God's hands. The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is truly consecrated to God. There are no little people and no big people in the true spiritual sense, but only consecrated and unconsecrated people. The problem for each of us is applying this truth to ourselves: Is Francis Schaeffer the Francis Schaeffer of God?"

When we evaluate some of God's servants as being big and important we are thinking in the flesh! We are idolizing the tools God uses rather than worshipping the God who is using them. It's not the person who matters; it's God. He's the only One that matters!