When you look around at Christians, it’s so easy to judge.  Believers get it wrong all the time – they get behind the wrong causes; they do a poor job living the truth; and they frequently serve Jesus in selfish ways.

You wonder why Jesus didn’t just stay here and do the work of loving the world Himself.  Using all of these messed up believers seems so inefficient.

Almost every night, I get my two toddlers to help clean up the house before they go to sleep.  Their toys are strewn all over our living room from a day of activity, and getting them involved in cleaning up is almost always an exercise in frustration.

I assign one daughter to pick up the books and the other to put up the doll house toys.  Then I walk away for two minutes; and when I return, one daughter is thumbing through Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet, and the other is playing with the doll house bedroom set.  I try to get them back on task, but I’m usually only successful if I repeatedly prod them along.  All the while, I’m thinking it would be so much easier if I did it myself.  But I don’t do it myself because I don’t think that’s good parenting.

My primary goal isn’t to get the living room clean; my primary goal is to raise my daughters to take responsibility for our home.  And if I’m going to successfully do that, I’ve got to be willing to suffer the inefficiency of accepting help from my clumsy, easily-distracted, underperforming toddlers.

So the next time a clumsy believer does a poor job of ministry or bulldozes your feelings in the name of Jesus, please remember that they are still a child of God.  They’re being trained by their Heavenly Dad, and although their efforts to serve Jesus may have done nothing but create a mess for you, He sees the long view, and He wants them involved.

Yes, it’s remarkably inefficient for Him to use them (and you, by the way), but if He did anything else, He wouldn’t be a good dad.

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