Usefulness is in the eye of the beholder

Pastor Gardner’s blog had this quote on it today:
“God plants His saints in the most useless places.
We say – God intends me to be here because I am so useful.
Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use.
God puts His saints where they will glorify Him,
and we are no judges at all of where that is.”

Oswald Chambers

What an encouragement that is to me in this place! I often feel useless and/or in a useless place. This quote came the day after reading this quote by Samuel Zwimmer, missionary to the Arabian Peninsula in the late 1800’s while on deputation referring to his supporters:

“One marvels at their faith in continuall sowing on such desert soil when all evidence of a visible harvest was absent.”

When I first arrived in North Africa full of hope, faith, and dreams I was talking to a friend who told me, “I couldn’t work in place like that. Call me carnal but I like preaching here to my hundreds each weekend.”

Now all these quotes hit a common nerve from a few different angles. I have often tried to figure out through my human reasoning, creative thinking, entrepreneurial planning, and staring at maps for hours exactly where I could be most “useful”.

What if every man did that? We’d all go to the same place! But God in his sovereignty knows where he wants me and he moves me there as I submit to His will! What does he get out of it? Usefulness. But he doesn’t judge usefulness like I do. While I am thinking of numbers impacted as judged by my limited capacities to observe, He judges by the depth, hight, and breadth of the glory he reserved judged by his unlimited (by time or space) ability to observe.

Brainard never saw how much glory God could receive from his relatively unproductive work…but God did.
Jim Eliot never saw any fruit from his labor…but God has seen immeasurable fruit.
Phillip never saw the potential in one black man in a desert…but God’s global eye did.
Zwimmer’s whole ministry during his life yielded less than a handful of believers … but his writings has stirred a generation of unprecedented missionaries to the Muslim world.

Can you think of anyone else serving in a useless place (humanly speaking) who were VERY useful to God?

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2 Responses to Usefulness is in the eye of the beholder

  1. Suzi says:

    Dear Bro in Christ,
    Please respond to my e-mail as to how one can donate for the cause of spreading the gospel to the lost. Also what country is your organization in?
    Thanks,
    Suzi

  2. Linda Perham says:

    God is not judging our usefulness, but our faithfulness. We have a saying in our home, like our grade school teacher used to say, “Keep your eyes on your own paper.” We will not be judged on where He puts us, but that we do His bidding while we are here. God bless you and keep you safe. Ernie and Linda Perham