God Can Use Anyone

I had worked through the Bible so started back at Genesis. I just hit the story of Jacob and Esau. I feel really sorry for Esau. Poor Esau cannot catch a break. First he foolishly barters away his rights of double inheritance as the first born son for a bowl of lentil soup. Jacob has made a delicious lentil soup, and Esau returns home, ravenous. He asks for soup, but his wily brother Jacob sees an opportunity to take what is not his. He offers Esau the soup, but only in return for Esau's "birth right" as the first born son. Esau cannot see beyond his immediate physical needs, and agrees. Esau is short sighted, but I find Jacob more despicable. How could he do that to his brother?

And it gets worse. The boys' father, Isaac, tells Esau to bring him some tasty meat from the hunt, after-which he will receive a blessing. The blessing has particular significance and was to be bestowed only upon the first born son. However, his conniving brother Jacob overhears and sneaks in first with his own tasty meat, and convinces the near blind father that it is Esau. Jacob receives the blessing that was rightfully Esau's. Then poor Esau returns, and cries out in heart wrenching sobs, "Bless me too, Father!" But Isaac cannot. He has given his blessing of the first born son irrevocably to Jacob.

I personally want to smack Jacob for being such an unkind, unloving brother, for cheating and scheming to get what he wanted, for being such a selfish jerk. And I want to smack Esau for valuing so little what was of such worth, while valuing too much what would only satisfy for a moment.

And yet, Jacob becomes the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, the patriarch of God's chosen people. Esau becomes the progenitor of the Edomites. Why does God use such reprehensible, flawed people as Jacob from which many generations later Jesus himself would be born?

Because He had no choice. We are all flawed. That is exactly His point. We are all, at times, unloving, unkind, selfish, scheming, unfaithful, short-sighted, and concerned with the temporal at the expense of the eternal. God uses us anyway, just like He used Jacob. And out of that sorry mess of mankind, a savior would one day be born, reminding us that God can use anyone. Even me.

Romans 3:23-24 (NIV)
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.





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