Broken. Bruised. Uncertain.

Imperfect. Flawed. Deficient.

Maybe you can relate to a few of those words. Maybe they describe something challenging from your past—or from your present.

Today I’m here to tell you that “God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines.”*

That’s something that was said by a church father named Ignatius. As the creative Creator he is, and as the loving Father he is, God is able to take the twisted and mangled bits of our lives and make something good.

Having just encouraged the Philippians to have the same mindset as Christ—who became a servant for our sake and suffered death on the cross even though he was (and is) Lord—Paul says that “it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” (Philippians 2:13).

It is God. At work. In you.

If you belong to Jesus, you may be broken, but it is God who works in you to will and act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Are you bruised or uncertain or imperfect or flawed or deficient? It is God himself—our creative Creator and loving Father—who works in you to will and act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Your problems are smaller than God’s power.

What are you facing? To admit final defeat is to say that God is not God.

“God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines.”

By Matthew Ruttan

–Bible quotes are from the NIV.
–*As quoted in: Richard Mouw, Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World (Downers Grove: IVP Press, 2010), 174.