My hands are dirty I dare not lift them up to the heavens, yet God sees me as a States man of his country. My tongue is uncultured and my mouth is foul, I dare not speak for God yet he used me as his mouthpiece! I am bad yet he calls me good, I have no spotlight shinning on me yet he calls me a super star, a shining light! I am dumb, stupid, and lowly! I cannot talk, I only bray and that irritates everyone around me. But somehow, I did end up at the King’s service conveying the words of the King! The truth is: I am no messenger of God, I am a donkey! So why would he put his words in my mouth?
Yes I am a donkey, and I am popularly known as the talking donkey! The event at Yazzi field changed everything about my life! A donkey used as a mouthpiece of the King? It was unprecedented! What Balaam the great failed to see, I saw! What he did in fact fail to hear, I heard. And when he had indeed failed to stand on the Lord’s side even on that narrow path through the vineyards at the field of Yazzi, God opened my mouth and I conveyed his message to Balaam!
It had fascinated my peers the same way it baffled the prophet and every other creature that heard or read the story of my life as it unfolded at the field called Yazzi! No one thought the Creator will use a braying tongue like mine as his mouthpiece! My kind don’t talk, we are no orators! As a matter of fact, we are that kind of God’s creature you had referred to as dumb! Talking is not a donkey thing, but God doesn’t seem to care and that amuses me even more!
I may not know much about God but one thing I know for sure is that, when He looked around at Yazzi field for the one creature to use, pedigree was no criteria, he wasn’t just looking for a glorified man, he scanned the horizon for any one available: donkey, stones or man? It didn’t matter! It didn’t matter what they can do or cannot do, didn’t matter their ability or inability! This I know for sure because when he found me, it didn’t matter my inability to speak or my ability to bray! I was no orator, I only bray and trust me, you can’t stand that talk less of listening to me! But yet he used me nevertheless!
Man, Stones or Donkey? Doesn’t matter to God!
Folks, I am that donkey that spoke! I am that messenger with a message he is not worthy of conveying. I am that ambassador representing the country he is alien to. I am that forerunner speaking of the one whose shoe lace he is not worthy of untying. I am that rock on which the church of the King I denied three times is built. I am that harlot that helped God’s people enter the promise land. I am that adulteress that anointed the feet of Christ! I am the messenger of the King I dare not speak of! I am bad, yet he uses me!
I was once asked: “why won’t the nations of the world make a person with a character like that of ‘Homer Simpson’ its ambassador”? You know as much as I do that an ambassador is one man handpicked amidst a rank of others to represent a country or her King. They are the incarnation, and subsequently the highest representation of the country or people they represent as everything about them points to that country! But I am called an ambassador of God on earth, which my friend leaves me dazzled! How can I so evil, so mortal, so canal and such a joke like ‘Homer Simpson’, be a representative of God who is so immortal, so pure, and so divine?
The truth is, while a Nation seeks out the very best in its population to name as its representative in a foreign land, God scans his created world and seeks out ‘not the best’ but the one available being: man, stones or donkey? ‘Who’ or ‘what’; it is doesn’t seem to matter to him! If one fails to do his bidding he will seek faithfulness in another! Pedigree doesn’t seem to be his criteria, and there is no weighing, which is good and which is bad, which is more and which is less, which is evil and which is pure, which is righteous and which is unrighteous, because on God’s scale, ‘the best of the good’ in us weights nothing! No matter how hard we try we will never be good enough for God and neither will we ever be too bad for Him! We will come to terms with this only when we understand that we are God’s ambassador not because of our good works but of his choosing! All our spiritual workouts will not muscle us up enough to stand before God by his standards.
So my friends, we are all talking donkeys only representing God on earth because he chooses us and that choice is not a tad about us, our talents or our strength, what we can do or cannot do, it is all about him! We have not been handpicked to represent God; we are not the best in his collection, we are better than none, and we are worse than none! It is grace that makes the difference, and it is grace that makes us all who we are in him! We earned nothing!
Jars of clay
Water takes the shape of any vessel you pour it into; in a very similar manner any vessel God breathes into takes the form of God! Call it donkey, stones or glorified man! When God stepped on mountain Horeb the mountain breathe fire, yet the flame would not consume the bush. When God descended on temples made of bricks, the glory of God filled those temples. And when God breathe into the lifeless mould from the dust of the ground, man became a living soul! God is not at all bemused by the quality or lack thereof of the vessel he uses as much as the strength of the power that fills the vessel! As a matter of fact the emptier the vessels the fitter or more qualified it becomes to draw at the well of grace.
Paul said in 2Corinthians 4 vs 7, “but we have this treasure in clay jars to show that its extraordinary power comes from God and not from us.” The truth is that: God can work his power through anything in his created world, stones, men, donkeys? That is why the quality of the vessel doesn’t matter to God as much as the sheer quality of the power poured into the vessel he uses: man, donkey, or stones!
So who said you are too bad to be his ambassador on earth? Who said you are fit for nothing in his purpose? Tell them “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”
In God’s great service house, the miracle is never about those jars of clay; it is the power that fills them!
We put so much around pedigree these days that we often fail to see or experience the sheer power that fills us as vessels. I’d rather be a braying donkey with God’s message on my lips than a crowd electrifying orator with a message of my own. I was nothing when he found me, I was nothing when he choose me, I was nothing when he called me, and I am nothing other than a talking donkey in his service, but I am all God wants me to be in Christ Jesus!
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