It's the unexpected people that God uses...

At the moment, Kim and I are taking our cell group through an overview of the Bible, to help others understand tbe 'big picture' of the Bible, so in the future, no matter what they read from wherever in the Bible, they'll hopefully be able to read it in some sort of context and therefore understand it more. Last night as Kim and i were preparing the next study on Judges, we got to the end, trying to think of application points and a good intro activity. Part of what we want people to learn and realise is that God so often uses the unexpected people/things to be the thing that rescues us. There are so many examples of that as we read through Judges, but the ultimate example is Jesus dying on a cross! so we started thinking of intro scenarios that might help introduce the whole 'unexpected king' idea. We thought about having a hypothetical where our cell group was taken hostage by terrorists. Who would we like to come be our rescuer? James Bond 007, Rambo, Bill Gates, Mickey Mouse, Deb Chen??? i'm sure most of us would choose the character/person who we thought had the skills, had the muscle power or had the money? but what about the ordinary people? So then kim started thinking towards our cell group and Kim brought up a really good point. If we were to think back about 5 months ago when our group was trying to work out what to study and who would be leading the group, who would we think would be leading the group at the moment? Our group is made up of a Bible College lecturer, doctor, head manager at the Chiang Mai Zoo, teachers, church secretary and an architect...to a waitress in a hotel who just finished uni last year and a foreigner who's only got limited thai..... apart from the last 2 people, It seems to be a pretty impressive group as such based on their qualifications, skills from a worldly point of view. So who would be the ones ready to lead the group? In a culture where age generally earns you respect, to be the youngest person in the group teaching older ones is a crazy role reversal. So who would've thought, that this year, it's the young waitress (youngest in the group) and the foreigner with limited Thai who would be the ones teaching the group the Bible? It was a really weird realisation that we had last night as we prepared our study of how God really does use the unexpected people!!