God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God (1 Cor 1:27-29).

If you take the time to make sense of God’s way, you will notice whenever he wants to achieve something, he usually goes about it in some unique, strange and odd way. he usually chooses the oddest means possible, most unexpected and interesting people possible, and most unsavory of places.

Just a few examples to clarify this point!

To enter our world, he not chose a teenage girl, he chose to be born in the unsanitary, dirtiest, most dangerous, and unexpected places you could have imagined. Even if you were drunk, you probably would not choose such a place for the mighty God to be born.

The place he was crucified was at some point the garbage dump of the city. Yet, it became one of the most important places in the history of the human race. Even you put a whole team of drug addicts together, they probably wouldn’t have chosen such a place.

To save the city of Nineveh, he chose Jonah. A Jewish man who not only hated foreigners, but a staunched enemy of the Ninevites. Yet, he chose to save them thru him. After much rebellious opposition, he went to Nineveh and spoke one line: “In forty days, Nineveh shall be destroy, unless you repent! The moment they heard his words, they all repent in sackcloth and fasting.  Even you put the smartest people together,  they wouldn’t have chosen Jonah as means to save nineveh.

To commence the evangelization of Samaria, Jesus used “the Samaritan woman”– rejected, outcast, prostitute that no one wants to talk to. Yet, meeting her and transforming her life, she became the means by which he reached Samaria. Even if you team up the craziest feminists in the world, they would not have chosen her.

What do we see here? In all these cases, God uses odd, interesting, unexpected, unsavory people and place to carry out his plan. In fact odd and unsavory don’t really capture what really happened in these caes. Whether you look at it from conservatives or liberals’ viewpoint, it just makes people cringe.

Again, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,…. (1 Cor 1:27-29).

Here’s the point– if you look at the Catholic church in America right now, you should think that it’s the last thing that God can use to save people. The church right now looks unsavory, dirty, hellish, and embarrassing.

But just like God transformed the manger into a place of adoration, just like he changed the idolatrous Ninevites into godly people, just like he altered the garbage dump of Jerusalem into the holiest place on earth, just like he uses the embarrassing Samaritan woman into evangelizer, so will he do with this scandalous church. His ways are odds and strange. We don’t always get his ways. That’s precisely why he is God. he knows what’s he’s doing. But in the midst of our confusion,  we don’t give up. We trust.

On an individual level, if you feel like your life in its own way has been like a garbage dump the last place God would want to dwell due to sin, addiction, unfaithfulness, then don’t get discouraged. The more strange one’s life is the easier it seems for God to transform it.