It is reported that D. L. Moody brought over one million souls to Christ, yet a local minister there in 1875 told Mr. Moody that the work was plainly of God. “For I could see no real relation between him [Moody] and what he had done!”
So it is with us: there appears no real relation between what we are in skin and bone and what God makes of our influence—much of which we can’t see. God hides what we are from ourselves lest we be inflated with our own importance and do no more. For now, He purposely hides what we are, to keep us “on the press.”
Chuck Swindoll wrote, “Galactic heights of prominence are often preceded by enormous time in the shadows. [And by great humblings, we might add.] The Apostle Paul approached Damascus with pomp and power, but made his exit by night in a fish basket hanging over a wall.”
Ray Stedman quipped that “We live in a world of crooks…; what an opportunity to be different!”
Be glad that you are a nobody, set down in the midst of a crumbling world. The praising, obedient, quietly faithful nobodies are what God makes into children of God.
[By the way, we offer a CD of a rare recording of storyteller Ethel Barrett telling Moody Bible School students about the life of Dwight L. Moody at Founders Week in 1967.]
