“For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.”  1 Corinthians 1:26 (KJV)

One of my favorite preachers was an old-timer named Dr. B.R. Lakin. He used to refer to a television commercial that spotlighted the women’s liberation movement. It was actually a Virginia Slims cigarette commercial that ended by saying “You come a long way, baby!” I remember hearing Dr. Lakin preach, and he sometimes referenced his humble beginnings in the hills of West Virginia. He grew up in hard times, and often plowed a mule all day in his bare feet. Occasionally the plow would hit a root and the plow handle would fly up and bust his lip or nose. As the blood trickled, he would stop, fall down on his knees, look up to the sky and cry out with tear-filled eyes, “Lord, will I EVER amount to anything?”
Decades later, Dr. Jerry Falwell, Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, would bring his mentor, Dr. Lakin, up to preach in the church or at Liberty University. As he sat comfortably in the private Learjet, he would think back to his childhood upbringing in poverty and hard times. He too would repeat the phrase in his mind, “You’ve come along way, baby!”
I also had a similar experience. Many years ago as I flew into a large city to preach a revival meeting, I felt completely overwhelmed. As the big jet descended on final approach into Detroit International Airport, I looked out the window and could see the city lights as far as I looked in any direction. I was humbled as I began to think of just who I was, and from where I had come. I admit feeling a bit intimidated to say the least. Who was I to be invited to preach in a church in Lincoln Park, Michigan? I was raised in rural Mississippi, in what I call the “backwoods of nowhere”. I had nothing, came from nothing and knew hard times and poverty as well. I knew all too well, how unlikely a candidate I was for such a task as this. I would have been voted “the most unlikely to succeed”, had there been such a category in high school yearbooks! When I see and talk with my old friends and classmates, they often say to me, “Randall, of all the people in our school, I would have never dreamed that you would be a preacher of the gospel!”
However, in almost the same instant, God comforted my heart by reminding me of what He said in 1 Corinthians 1:26. He typically chooses the nothings and nobodies of this world to accomplish His purposes. God does not usually call the rich, famous, or the powerful, to do His will. Not many mighty or noble are called. God does not always call the most educated, well-spoken, wealthy or influential people. But instead, He often calls the weak, lowly and common people to confound the wise of the world. “Why? you may ask? Because when something supernatural or miraculous happens, then He gets all the glory because it must be of God and not the human instruments He uses! God may use us humans, but he certainly does not have to. By the way, I cannot close without mentioning one of God’s greatest choices of all time, a little farm boy from North Carolina named Billy Graham!
So, when we feel unworthy, unable or inadequate, we should remember what the Apostle Paul said; “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry”, (1 Timothy 1:12 KJV). To God be the glory, great things He has done!