I had the opportunity to serve communion in church on Sunday. I’d never done this before, except in the case of a circle of communion where everyone serves the person next to them, so this was significant for me. There were four of us, one of each element on either side of the aisle.
I took some bread and headed to my side of the aisle. As people lined up and filtered down toward the front, I saw, for the first time, the faces of those coming to accept Christ’s sacrifice (I’m usually in line along with the others). One by one by one they came.
For each person, I tried to look them in the face and I said, “Christ’s body, broken for YOU.” I wanted each time I said it to be meaningful. The Holy Spirit moved in me those next few minutes. When I looked at all the faces of God’s people, hands forward, burdened and broken, yearning to receive their Savior, I realized the magnitude of what I was giving them. Not that I give the body and blood of life, only Jesus has done that, but that God used me to administer this representation of His sacrifice.
Me?! A sinner! One who doubts, one who gives in to the desires of the flesh so often, one who whores away to the ways of this world, one so jealous and covetous, one with so little confidence in my own self. A doubter. Prideful. Undisciplined.
Me? I was struck by the fact that God would choose to use someone who falls so short of his glory.
In preparing for this World Race, I’ve doubted so many times whether I’m “qualified.” Do I know enough about the Bible or God? Do I “get it” like the image I put up says I do? Can God use me to impact the lives of people around the world when I struggle even now in my life of security and comfort? Maybe that’s what He requires…for us to be stripped completely bare to the point of being unqualified and under-prepared, so that we become invisible and He becomes glorified through everything “seen” in our lives.
I don’t know much, but I do know that Sunday the Holy Spirit showed me how God can use even the most fallen to share his sacrifice with the rest of the world. A sinner like me.
“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.”
-Mother Theresa
