Crooked Sticks — A LifeWords Devotion

One of the great saints of the church once said that God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines. Imperfect human beings can be instruments of God’s perfect purposes. That is a great comfort to we who are well aware of our weaknesses and fragility, and the dark secrets of our hearts and minds.

Following Jesus doesn’t entail our getting all cleaned up before we can serve him and others. We would be waiting forever. For sure, the Holy Spirit is at work in us, smoothing some rough edges, pointing us to greater spiritual maturity. For sure we seek to be the best people we can be.

But in the meantime, we are active for Jesus. We don’t sit on the sidelines admiring others who seem to have attained some degree of spiritual excellence. We don’t get sunk into despondency about our own unworthiness. We offer God what we have and who we are, and let him get to work on it. He is not peering round the universe seeking someone who is “just right”. He is looking for people like us.

Time and again, we discover that despite our serious limitations, God draws us into his purposes for humankind. The crooked sticks of our fallible humanity become the means by which our infallible God draws his sovereign straight lines.

Blessings

David