Habakkuk? Really?

In my mission team meetings we've been talking a lot about who we are, who we should be to the Lakota, and who we should be in Christ. Team Leader said that after the last trip he had a girl decide she wants to do teen suicide prevention. This girl is an English major. In the words of Team Leader, "English majors aren't supposed to do things like that! Redford majors are supposed to do things like that!" (Redford is the ministry majors here, FYI). Later he was talking about some things he was dealing with in his personal life and he said that God sent him a verse. In Habakkuk. Of all places. I think his mind was kind of blown, because he sounded incredulous. He said that he was headed for Romans, but God just cut him off and gave him something totally different. Which I think is totally cool.

The other day in small groups we were talking about how we tend to think that we don't need to give of our time and money NOW. We plan on it, just as soon as life slows down a little, or once (in our college student cases) we get jobs and steady paychecks.

I think both of these situations lead to an interesting place. So many times we think that someone need to do something, to change the world. Someone other than us. We can't do anything. We are ministry majors. We don't have high paying jobs and steady salaries. Someone else is going to have to do it for us. We'll stand on the side lines and cheer, we'll make a Facebook group/event to show our mediocre support, we may even casually mention it to a few friends. Just as long as we ourselves don't have to get in, get involved, and get messy.

Guess what? There are more non-ministry majors than there are ministry majors. Guess what else? The disciples were fishermen. Some of the prophets were farmers. Matthew worked for the IRS. Rahab was a prostitute. Every person God has ever used has been nothing but a human and a screw-up. Some of them were "ministry majors," and many of them weren't. Some of them were bigger than others.

Our majors, jobs, salaries (or lack thereof), familes, etc. should not determine our usefullness to God. It doesn't matter what stage of life you're in. You still have something to offer. You have something to give.

We expect great things out of people like Abraham and Paul.

Maybe it's time we started expecting great things out of people like Zephaniah and Habakkuk as well.

Maybe we should begin to expect it of ourselves.