"Save the Earthworms!"

The title, "Save the Earthworms!" in the last newsletter from Christian Aid Ministries

caught my attention. I read that in Haiti, farmers have routinely killed earthworms

because they think they are ugly.

So Christian farmers from America are going down and teaching the Haitians better farming methods--including understanding that bacteria and fungi and earthworms are beneficial to the soil,

and why to save the earthworms alive!

And I've  thought a lot about that--why worms are actually beneficial when they are ugly and gross.

And you have to admit, there are some people that just are ugly or miserable or unkempt or an emotional mess or a mental case or a fool or keep doing dumb things and causing trouble or --

any number of things that make it hard to like them. 

There are a lot of people that other people would just sort of like to get rid of

from their church, their workplace, their extended family, their school, their household.
To just chop that stupid, ugly, gross earthworm in two because we don't like it.

And there are more than one way to chop a weak person in two.

Not everyone is a mighty hunter like Nimrod before the Lord.

Or a nobleman who has never had a stain on his reputation.

Or a mighty man of valor who never shed an unnecessary tear in his life.

*** 

And so when my hubby and oldest son had left to go hunting, that evening I sat down and reached for my Bible.

 I wanted to read again the passage that the children just started memorizing, where it talks about the kind of people God chooses. 

And the kind He doesn't.

"Not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called."

 I watched the autumn sunshine pour through the leaves of the trees at a cemetery near our church as I waited for the children who were in Bible Club last week. 

And there were a lot of people buried in that cemetery. I looked to see if there were a gravestone yet of a friend who had been buried there. There was no gravestone yet, but his memory lingers

as a man who was not unusually wise or mighty or noble--

just humble and helpful and a quiet Christian.

Because "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise,

and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty."

 My mind has often lingered there in that passage, because I could relate to being foolish and weak.

 But it is the foolish and the weak that God chooses.

 The glory isn't in the being foolish or weak, 

but that God chooses the foolish and the weak 

and that means He chooses me.

 And so a beautiful light shines in the darkness of feeling like a weakling and a fool and often a failure.

 Because "the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are."

When we are despised by others--God chooses us.
And when we despise others, God chooses them.

When we are weak fools, He chooses us.
And when others are weak fools, He chooses them.

When we are worms of the dirt--God chooses for us to have a part in His plan.

And so, just because God chooses the poor and the weak and the despised,

we who want to walk in His footsteps ought to also value 

the poor, the weak, and the despised.

When someone is being chopped to pieces, we ought to reach out and stay the shovel.

When someone is being cut down, we need to stand up for them. 

When we meet another weak person, just like us, we ought to give them a helping hand

and a shoulder to cry on.

Because we are all just that--worms together, bits of nothing.

And all the glory belongs to God!