Wednesday, October 14, 2015

SHAMGAR

You should strongly consider naming your next child Shamgar.  This works, frankly, for a girl or a boy.  You can't always really tell these days which is which by the name, so I'm just sayin.'

Having said that, in the Bible, Shamgar was a man.

He was one of the Old Testament judges.  The weird thing about this guy is he only gets one verse in the whole Bible -- Judges 3:31.

He's like Jabez or Benaiah, characters who get sparse treatment in the Bible, and yet entire books are written about them.  (Hmmmm...there's an idea.)

I'd tell you his story here but since it's so short I'll let you look it up. Suffice to say if you took a weekend in most churches and polled the crowd on who Shamgar was, almost nobody would know.  He'd be a nobody to them.

That's what some of you think about you.  You think you're unimportant - a nobody - but you're Imago Dei -- made in the image of God.

Shamgar was likely from humble beginnings -- probably a farmer's boy -- proficient in handling tools and oxgoads and the like.  But what's most critical to know about him isn't any of that.

What made him great was that he didn't want till he became great in order to do something great.  He modeled two of the greatest principles of being made in the image of God:

Start where you are.
Use what you have.

'Start where you are.  Use what you have.'

Shamgar did.

You can, too.

Maybe you won't name your next child Shamgar.  Maybe you won't change your name.  But we could all unofficially make Shamgar our new middle names ... Kevin Shamgar Taylor.

It works.

Start where you are.
Use what you have.

God can do great things with what you hold in your hand right now.

And be blessed.

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