How would you like to be called a worm? Yuk! When I think of a worm, I think of either little skinny creatures in the garden or fat night crawlers—the kind you split up and put on your grandchild’s fishing hook. A worm is delicate and is easily bruised by a stone or crushed beneath a passing wheel, certainly not capable of hurting you. But they certainly are squeamish to handle! Well, our great, loving God called Israel a “worm”! “Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you,” declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 41:14, NIV).
The context is Israel was helpless against the strong armies of surrounding nations, particularly the Babylonians mentioned in the next chapter. Compared to them, Israel wouldn’t have felt as much like a grasshopper as they would a worm! In love, God was speaking to where they were emotionally. What time in your life have you felt helplessly low like a worm in comparison to an impossible mountain of a problem staring you in the face? With Israel feeling like that, God was encouraging them by telling them, as He does us, “See, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff” (Isaiah 41:15, NIV). REALLY!!
Contrast these extremes. A weak and helpless worm compared to a threshing tool with sharp teeth that can cut through rock and not be broken. God, who created the universe and all that exists, would have no problem making that transformation if He chose to do so. But then, this was a word picture God was giving to the terrified people of Israel. In reality, God has innumerable ways to create the effects of a “threshing sledge… with many teeth” on an army! In their case, He could have used works of nature like tornadoes, plagues or anything to decimate an army.
Keep that in mind when circumstances are totally overwhelming, and you feel like a worm in comparison. It is fascinating that God’s ways have historically shown that He prefers to use the weak and broken things in life through which to do His mighty work. Heaven is being filled with earth’s broken lives, and there is no “bruised reed” or “smoldering wick” (Isa 42:3) that Christ cannot take and restore to a glorious place of blessing and beauty. He chooses the weak, so there can be no question that He is the force that makes it happen. Why is it then that we work so hard to prefect our skills, looks, financial sheet, or power of influence when those things make us rather than God look good?
I’ve wondered at times if I am not somehow working against Him by trying to say and do everything “just right”! However, I have learned God ordained for there to be a healthy tension between me feeling like a worm yet exerting my very best while being totally dependent upon Him to accomplish the task. I am reminded of Jacob trusting God to do His part while he put rods of various colors in front of the sheep when they drank water (Genesis 30). His acting on faith resulted in building a very large flock of sheep. We know that biologically doing that is totally insane!! But, when God is with us, He takes our trusting attitude and honest efforts of obedience and mixes in His power and produces incredible results. That was the formula He used to bring the walls of Jericho down. Paul said of his work in Colossians 1:29 (GW), I work hard and struggle to do this while his mighty power works in me. Are you willing to feel like a worm if it will result in you seeing God do the miraculous?
Thank you Pastor Bob. Needed to read this.