God only works through sinners.

It's time you accept that.

I have a prayer I write in my journal most mornings about my wife, my kids, and myself. It’s eight words:

Heal Brett. Heal Jack. Protect Annie. Soften me.

God answered the last part of that prayer this weekend. Just not in the way I would have wanted. And boy, was that a toughy.

I won’t get into all the details, but a softening has happened to me over the last three days. But like a tough steak, that softening—that tenderizing—has been the result of some hammering. I’ve been put on the cutting board and God has gone to work with the tenderizer. Blow, after blow, after blow. Each one loosening the tough sinews and tight soul muscles that have been bound up for God knows how long.

And that process is painful. Have you ever experienced that?

That softening has come through a variety of ways. One of them has come via others. People who have pointed things out in my life. Especially recently. That’s been tough. Not just because it’s not fun to hear how you’re falling short, but because there’s something I do that I think we all do when others point tough things out to us.

It goes something like this, “You think you’re any better?”

What I mean is that in our flesh, I think we can and do quickly try and dismiss what is said to us because we know that the person pointing out whatever it is in us has faults of their own. “Maybe they should work on their own crap first!” 😤

You’ve been there, right?

But do you know what? That thinking is so illogical, not to mention anti-biblical. Why? Because of course anyone who points something out to you has their own crap to work on! In other words, if you only took advice from someone who doesn’t have faults of their own, you could never take advice! Period.

Here’s what you need to remember, what I need to remember: God only works through sinners. Think about that for a second. In reality, there is only one person God ever used, and it’s not you, it’s not me, and it’s not whoever calls you out on something.

Every single person on this earth is a sinner. Every. Single. One. Not just before they follow Christ, but after. I had a phone call last week with a pastor who spent the bulk of his ministry working with youth. He shared a stat with me that was so eye-opening.

“Something like over 80% of Christians say they made their decision to follow Christ before the age of 18,” he said. (He’s right.) “Do you know what that means? A vast majority of their sins will be committed as Christians.”

Mic drop, as they say.

Friend, God works through sinners. He only did it differently once in the person of Jesus. Everyone else he uses is a sinner. Not was a sinner, is a sinner.

That’s me, that’s you, and that’s the person who points out our blind spots. What’s my point? Don’t miss what God has for you on the other side of refining you because you’re so focused on the messiness of the messenger. Because every messenger is messy.

That’s just how God works.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash