So you’re not perfect.

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Couldn’t Jesus do a little better? I am sure there were plenty of synagogue leaders and faithful religious priests to choose from. Why Peter?

Remember Moses? Before God called Moses, he was tending his flock at Midian. He is a runaway slave with a rap sheet for murder. You cannot get lower than that. Wouldn’t you think that God would want someone who was up a little higher on the social scale? Couldn’t God come up with someone more successful? Why Moses? In the kingdom of God, Moses has potential to do well. He became the greatest prophet in Israelite history.

Abraham is an uneducated nomad from Ur. He is a nobody. He tells Abraham to go to the Promised Land. Is there no one in the Promised Land that God could pick?

The book of Genesis is about dysfunctional families: bad parenting, kids with father wounds, and sibling rivalry. Yet, God executes his plan, not in spite of the flaws but because of them. One family sold their brother into slavery. Can you imagine that, yet the world would have starved if they did not sell him to a merchant in Egypt?

I have one company which supplies all my cleaning equipment. I can call and tell them, “The what-do-you-call-it on my red vacuum cleaner does not work.” They will say, “Okay, you need new belts, I’ll send them out to you.” You can’t do that with Home Depot. You call, and they want the model number only later to inform you that it has been discontinued and they don’t carry parts.

I have my one cleaning company and, I will be honest, they are terrible. Awful I should say. I hate to tell you my problems, but I bought a small floor cleaner to wash the floor between the pews in the church. The squiggle blades were worn out, so I called my one company to replace them. They sent me a pair of four-foot rubber blades. My machine is only 32 inches wide. I called to tell them that the blades are too long. They said, “Cut them.”  I told them, “Even after I cut them to size, they still don’t fit.” Another time the water didn’t come out of the floor washer in a nice even spray, the water instead just drooled out. I called and told them that something was wrong. They came and took the floor washer away to fix it. Three weeks later I called to ask them, “Where is my floor washer?” They said they were waiting for a part. They finally brought the machine back. I lugged it upstairs, got it filled with water, I started the machine, and…they replaced the wrong valve. UGGGGGH! Now you may say to me, “Why don’t you just get another cleaning company for your supplies?” Why not dump them for some better service. The answer: I have my reasons. The woman who owns the company called me and asked if I needed anything. I told her, as a matter of fact, I could use vacuum cleaner bags. Then she told me it was her eightieth birthday. I said, “You’re still working at eighty?” She said, “It keeps me young. By the way, Peter, I took a hundred dollars off the last bill. Just don’t tell my boys.” As I said, I have my reasons.

Peter, James, and the other fisherman may not be the best choices, but Jesus said, “I like these hard workers. These are the guys that will follow Me. They will turn the world upside down. Churches and Basilicas will be named after them. There will not be one person born in the next two thousand years that will not know their names or their legacy.”

You may be imperfect, but Christ called you. Whatever reason He had, it must be nice to be favored and liked by God.