Serving God in Unglamorous Places

Source: Serving God in Unglamorous Places (gentlereformation.com)

 By Stephen Steele - Posted at Gentle Reformation:

In 1848, during the Great Famine, there was a failed Irish nationalist uprising by the Young Irelanders. It culminated on 29 July in a gunfight which became known as 'The Battle of Widow McCormack’s Cabbage Patch'.

One of the rebels was shot dead by the police. Another was fatally wounded. But even though it was a matter of life and death, it’s hard not to smile at the name. We would be quick to tell people about ancestors who fought at Waterloo or Gettysburg. But a cabbage patch doesn’t rank too highly when it comes to the great battlefields of history.

Yet we’re not all called to take on the enemy on glamorous battlefields. As if there is such a thing anyway.

Lentil fields need defended

In 2 Samuel 23 we meet a man called Shammah who takes his stand in a plot of ground full of lentils. The Philistines had gathered. The men of Israel had fled. But Shammah ‘took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it and struck down the Philistines, and the LORD worked a great victory’ (v. 12).

I’m sure there are people that we’re all looking forward to meeting in heaven: our favourite characters from the Bible, as well as great missionaries and others from church history. But has anyone ever said: ‘I can’t wait to meet the guy who defended the lentil field’?!

Yet lentil fields need defended. And God calls most of his followers to serve him in unglamorous situations.

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