Willing to Be a Worm

Today's Scripture: Isaiah 41:14-15
"Fear not, you worm Jacob. Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge."
Read it online at the Bible Gateway: (NIV) (NASB) (KJV) (The Message)

Years ago when God opened up for me a wider Bible teaching and writing ministry, I felt drawn to Isaiah 41:14-15. Though the promise was given to Israel, I sensed God allowing me to make a personal application—that he would indeed make me into a threshing sledge, a harvesting instrument in his hand. I also sensed that God required, as a condition of the promise, that I accept the description of "worm Jacob," not in a denigrating sense, but as a realization of my own personal weakness and helplessness.

I go back to that condition and promise almost every time I teach the Word of God or sit down to write, to acknowledge my own inability to accomplish anything for God and to lay hold of his promise to give me the power to minister for him. God seems to keep saying, "as long as you're willing to acknowledge you're as weak and helpless as a worm, I'll make you strong and powerful like a threshing sledge with new, sharp teeth."

The gracious paradox of divine strength working through human weakness as taught in Scripture has been recognized through the centuries by the great teachers of the church. John Owen said, "yet the duties God requires of us are not in proportion to the strength we possess in ourselves. Rather, they are proportional to the resources available to us in Christ. We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God's tasks. This is a law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform a duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment. But alas, this is a secret we often fail to discover.