God can use Broken Vessels like Us

BY NANCY LIM

Many years ago, I met an old Christian who was sent to jail in her younger days for distributing copies of the Bible which was prohibited in her country. She served a number of years in jail, witnessed the harsh ways that the guards treated the prisoners and also suffered badly under them. When I met her in her old age, she was confined in her wheelchair and was in ill health. 

The testimony of her life story reminded me of the suffering Job, the apostle Paul and also the prophet Jonah.  She reminded me of Jonah because she had her idea of whom she would share the Good News and whom she would not. She complained to God, determined that she would not share the Gospel with the cruel and godless prison guards. Perhaps she had thought that the guards deserved God’s judgment for they had shown no fear of Him and had treated His people cruelly. Perhaps she had her preconceived notion that her effort would be in vain for they, like the Pharaoh in the Exodus account, would never turn to God.  However, God subsequently changed her mind.  

At the beginning of the book of Jonah, God had commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh and pronounced His coming judgement to a nation known for their cruel and wicked ways.  But Jonah disobeyed and ran away from God. God dealt with Jonah’s wilfulness and he was ultimately brought to his knees before God. In today’s passage, we see that Jonah finally obeyed God’s call and made his journey to Nineveh, somewhat reluctantly.  We were told in Jonah 4:1 that it displeased him exceedingly to see that God had relented from bringing disaster upon the Ninevites after they showed their repentance, from the King to the common people and even the animals were covered with sackcloth.   

Jonah had his own idea of whom he would go to preach God’s word and whom he would not!  But this is not the case with God! God’s love is boundless. His grace extends to all peoples and nations. He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45). Jonah’s attitude paled in comparison to that of Abraham’s, who pleaded with God for mercy when he knew of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16-33).  

Just as God had given Jonah a second chance to accomplish his mission (Jonah 3:1-2), God also gave the Ninevites a chance to repent from their evil deeds. We are all sinners saved by grace through faith, and not by any righteous acts of our own effort. Jonathan Edwards, a well-known American theologian, minister, and missionary during the time of the First Great Awakening, painted a vivid picture when he said “All your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.” 

The apostle Paul told us that we are ambassadors for Christ, and God is making His appeal through us that in Christ, He was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). God in His grace has chosen to put this treasure in jars of clay, willing to use broken vessels like us to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us (2 Corinthians 4:7). Perhaps we can take a moment to reflect upon our own attitudes – have we set our own boundaries, even unconsciously, as to who “deserves” to hear the Gospel and who does not?  May we go to God in humility and ask Him to grant us a tender heart for the lost and seek to accomplish the mission that He has given to each one of us.