Tuesday, May 28, 2019


Unlikely Circumstances
By Susan Klein

“Here am I. Send me.”

I love the movie One Night With The King,  a story about Esther. One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Mordecai proclaims that Esther has been placed in her unlikely circumstance of being chosen as wife by the king “…for such a time as this.”  He knows she now possesses influence to save her people from harm. God is like that, placing people in unlikely circumstances in order to do something they’d never have otherwise done.

Scripture is filled with such stories. Joseph is sold into slavery, so he can eventually end up serving a king and providing for his people during a famine. Miriam puts baby Moses in a basket. He ends up being raised in Pharaoh’s household, so he can eventually lead his people out of Egypt. David, as a boy, is sent to merely take food to the Israelite soldiers facing the Philistines in battle, but he is used by God to slay the giant Goliath with his simple slingshot.

Have you ever wanted to be used by God in such a mighty way? Have you ever thought, “My life is so ordinary, how can God possibly use me for something so big?” 

But maybe He already has? Perhaps He’s used you (like Miriam and David) in a situation that seemed small and insignificant at the time, but it started a chain reaction of events that He used for a bigger purpose. We aren’t always privy to what God does behind the scenes. Maybe the question we really ought to be asking is, “How can I be used by God in simple ways?”

Recently, my daughter and I were coming out of a restaurant. In the parking lot, a teenage boy approached us and asked to use our phone. He was stranded and was trying to get to a relative’s house. We were not in a familiar area and knew, in a world where bad things happen, that this complete stranger could have been setting us up.

Long story short, we ended up spending an hour with him, in our car, driving several miles to another town. He thanked us as we approached his destination. We replied, “Please don’t thank us. Thank God for putting us in that place at that time so we could be of help.”

As we made the long drive home, we reflected how God had taken us out of our comfort zone to do something that we might never have otherwise done. I wonder how He might be using this unlikely little circumstance?

GOING DEEPER:
1. What unlikely place might God be desiring to use you?
2. Is your heart open and available?

FURTHER READING:

Susan is married to Mark, and co-leads an in-home small group. She serves as a mentor to young women, and is a member of Oakwood’s Peace Team, helping people work through conflict.