This is a written version of what I spoke about at church on Sunday:

How does God see us?

For a recent assignment at college, we were placed into groups of 4, and had to create a short film. In our group’s film, I played one of the main characters, and did a lot of the editing for it. When I watch the film, my first thought is always “wow! Look at what we created… it actually works!”, and it’s really exciting. I can overlook the problems we had creating an idea and editing to get the final version, and just be amazed that it works. I think that’s how God sees us. He can overlook the fact that we don’t always do the right thing or say the right thing, He just looks at us and says “look at what I created. It’s beautiful”.

But so often, it’s hard for us to see ourselves that way. Every time I watch our film, my first reaction is still “oh my gosh, it actually works”… but then I keep watching, and I start to see the faults in it. I see that transition between shots that isn’t as smooth as it should be, and that sentence that should have been said louder or another sentence that should not said at all, and the sneezes in the background, and the scenes that should have had music over them, and things like that. It doesn’t matter how many times my friends tell me that you can’t hear the sneezes unless you know they are there, or that the transition looks good, or that the quiet music in the background was enough… I still pick out the faults every time I watch it. And then I realised, that that’s actually how I see myself. I’m able to recognise when I’ve done something well, but no matter how well, I still pick faults with my performance. I think that someone else could have done it better and therefore, they should have been the ones to do it. Even when God’s told me to do something, I doubt His wisdom in choosing me and try to tell Him to choose someone else.

I know I’m not the only one who’s done this, because there are examples in the Bible of people doing just that. In Exodus chapter 3 and 4, God tells Moses that he is the one chosen to talk to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of slavery. Moses gave five excuses as to why he wasn’t the right person for the job, the last of which was: “Oh Lord, please send someone else to do it”.
But God knew the potential in Moses, and chose him for the job anyway. It didn’t matter that Moses’ background wasn’t too impressive: he had killed a man and disobeyed God’s law when he failed to circumcise his son. In fact, God has a habit of choosing people who we would say belong lower down on this ladder (of who is a "good" or "bad" person. What are some examples?

In Joshua chapter 2, God used a Gentile prostitute named Rahab to save the lives of two Jewish men. She went on to marry a Jew, and become an ancestor of Jesus!

A shepherd boy named David was the youngest in his family, yet became Israel’s greatest king.

Matthew was a tax collector – which was more despised back then than now – yet Jesus chose him to be an Apostle, and he also wrote one of the Gospels.

Peter was a fisherman who became a disciple but then denied Christ. He became the rock on which Jesus said He’d build the church (Matthew 16:18)

Paul said himself he was “the least of the apostles, and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” (1 Corinthians 15:9). But God used him to spread the gospel across the Roman Empire, and many of his writings are found in the New Testament.

So if some of the heroes in the Bible had not-so-great backgrounds and God used them, He can use us, even when we feel like we are right down here at the bottom of the ladder!

Very nice, Sparkling!