The Unseen Strengths in Our Differences: A Biblical Perspective

Ever feel like the odd person out?

Well, you're gonna love today's lesson.

Kick the doors open, let the party begin.

Hey, welcome to Feeding My Faith.

I'm your host, Dave Jackson.

Today we've got some really gruesome Bible stories and I wanted to talk about when we feel maybe like the odd person out or we just don't fit.

We're going to talk about someone who was left handed.

Now, the Bible does not actually look down on anyone who is left handed.

They mention it in Judges 20:16.

It says among all the soldiers, there were 700 select troops who were left handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.

So maybe being left handed, that's actually a compliment.

There's another spot where it says David had troops that could fight with both hands.

But it's also got the weird thing if you think about it, that, you know, often if you sit on the right hand side of someone that seemed to be the side of favor, things like that.

So we're going to talk about left handedness or just being different.

And sometimes we feel like we don't fit in.

We've all got something probably.

And I found a couple examples that I thought I would share.

One is Richard Branson, who had dyslexia.

And if you're not familiar with Richard Branson, he's the guy behind Virgin Airwaves, he's a billionaire, etc.

But he struggled in traditional schooling because of his dyslexia and it was regarded as a learning defect.

And he said he credits that dyslexia for his unconventional thinking, which emerged from adapting around dyslexia as a key advantage in building the Virgin Group and other business successes.

Vincent Van Gogh, you know, the famous painter, had mental health struggles really throughout his life and was largely unrecognized as an artist during his lifetime.

So he never, you know, got the accolades.

But after his death, his distinct and emotional perspective and techniques, once seen as the product of instability, became celebrated as visionary.

So again, had something set him apart.

Probably felt it was a negative.

Turns out later it's a positive.

Albert Einstein, you know him, he's a famous scientist.

He had a speech delay and basically was kind of socially awkward.

In fact, he didn't speak until the age of three.

And he had like, we're seeing a pattern here.

He had a kind of a difficult time in traditional schooling and some people thought he had basically a cognitive defects, meaning he was dumb.

Right.

Well, later, if you didn't know, he revolutionized physics with some Theorizing that his differences contributed to his unusual conceptual ability.

He thought differently and he's famous for all sorts of stuff, theory of relativity, etc.

Etc.

Harriet Tubman had a traumatic brain injury.

I didn't know that.

So she had suffered this injury in childhood and it resulted in lifelong seizures and narcoleptic episodes.

Now, despite that, or maybe even driven in part by those challenges, she became an ingenious conductor on the Underground Railroad, leading hundreds to freedom.

So again, maybe something that was seen as a negative later turned into a positive.

And probably one of the most famous is Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind.

And so she lost both her sight and her hearing at a young age.

And many people consider that just, well, you're done, you're toast, you're not going to get past that.

But she learned to communicate.

She graduated from college and became a celebrated writer and an advocate for people with disabilities.

So again, people are different, probably thinking, oh, I'm on the outside looking in.

And yet they were able to overcome and inspire.

So let's go to a judge in the Old Testament named Ehud.

It's a short little spot, it's pretty gross.

I'm going to read it here.

So back in this time, this is where the Israelites would be free.

They'd kind of forget everything they learned from God.

They would get overtaken, they'd cry out to God, oh, what was God help your children.

And God would, you know, send somebody, they'd come down, they'd kick some butt, they'd be free for a couple years and then they'd forget everything.

And we're kind of in that kind of pattern.

And so here in Judges 3:15, it says again, the Israelites cried out to the Lord and he gave them a deliverer.

So even though this is the book of Judges, they kind of refer to Ehud as a deliverer, a left handed man, the son of Jira, the Benjamite.

And apparently the tribe of Benjamin had a lot of left handedness going on.

And it says the Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon, King of Moab.

So they are being ruled by the Moabites, I guess it would be.

And good old King Eglon is ruling.

It says now Ehud had made a double edged sword, about a cubic long.

And if you look that up, it's about 18 inches which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing.

Now why is right thigh?

Because he's left handed.

And he presented the tribute to Eglon King of Moab, who was and According to the Bible, a very fat man.

So we're talking Jabba the Hutt kind of thing going on here.

And after Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way, those who had carried it.

So, hey, guys, we're done here.

Go ahead and you can leave.

But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal, he himself went back to the king Eglon.

So you figure like, hey, the party's over.

We came here, we did a little presentation.

He goes back to the king and he says, you, Majesty, I have a secret message for you.

And so the king says to his attendants, leave us.

And they all left.

So it's just those two.

And so he trusted him.

And Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palace.

He says, I have a message from God for you.

And as the king rose from his seat, he reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh, which, if you think about this, the guards didn't check.

They probably checked his left side for any kind of weaponry, because if you're right handed, that's where you're going to hold it.

So they totally missed it.

So he takes his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly.

Even the handle sank in after the blade and his bowels discharged.

Ew.

Ehud did not pull the sword out and the fat closed in over it.

Tmi, just for the record, then Ehud went out to the porch.

He shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

Now, apparently the upper room is where you go to do your business.

So after he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked.

And they said he must be relieving himself in the upper room of the palace.

I don't know why these people in Israel have English accents, but they do.

They waited to the point of embarrassment because they're like, man, that dude had to do some serious business or something.

But when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and they unlocked it.

And there they saw their Lord falling to the floor, dead.

Now, while they waited, Ehud got away.

He passed by the stone images and escaped to Sira.

And when he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim.

And the Israelites went down with him from the hills with him leading them.

And to make a long story short, they went and killed a bunch of Moabites and they got themselves back free.

And so that's the good news, says the the day Moab was made subject to Israel and the land in peace for 80 years.

So after being in captivity due to the fact that this dude was left handed, he's able to sneak in, kill the fat dude and the Israelites were back to being free.

So keep that in mind that if you have something, whatever it is, physical, mental, whatever, and you're like, oh yeah, I can't do that because I'm, you know, so like I am at this point somewhat allergic to the sun.

If I'm in the sun more than a half hour in really bright hot sun, I get what looks like mosquito bites all over my arms and legs and my, it's just a pain in the butt and it's called sun poisoning.

And so there are times when that's really kind of annoying.

But who knows, maybe someday I will be someplace and they go, we need someone who's really white and pasty.

Is anybody here?

And I'll be like, yeah, I got that.

You know, so another example, when I was growing up, I was left handed.

I eventually, somewhere around the age of six, said, alright, I'm done with this.

But consequently, I was way behind everybody else, especially in sports.

Now I could shoot.

It's weird.

I was left handed and I was short and I was slow.

So not a master when it came to sports.

Meanwhile, everybody else is excelling.

And so part of the things, especially with baseball is I didn't have a left handed mitt.

So I would have this right handed mitt and I would catch it with my left hand and then throw the ball up in the air, grab it with my right hand, throw the left glove off my hand, put it back in my left hand and throw it.

And by that time whoever hit it now has a home run.

And likewise, even when I wasn't on defense, I wasn't very good at hitting the ball because again, I always tried, I avoided baseball.

And if I did hit the ball, I was slower than dirt.

So I could have knocked something out to the wall and they could still throw me out.

And so, you know, that wasn't my game.

I was okay at basketball until everybody else grew and I didn't.

And so that was kind of a bummer.

And then when I finally did grow, I swear it threw off my shot.

So basketball was not my thing.

And when we got into early teenage kind of times, my friend had a paper route and later I had my own and I'm carrying these heavy bags of newspapers, walking all over the neighborhood.

And so consequently, while they're playing Sports.

I gotta go to work.

And I remember once school was over, I could play during the day with the rest of the kids.

Before, of course, you know, I had to go deliver my papers.

And the one day, they decided to play football.

Now, here again, I'm not very fast.

I can catch the ball, but you're probably not going to throw it to me because I didn't outrun anybody.

It's not like I'm going to get open.

And I wasn't.

If you gave me a Nerf football, man, I could throw a Nerf into the next state.

Me and my best friend used to just throw the Nerf in the street over and over and over.

Same thing with Frisbee.

But I wasn't very good with an actual real football, and so I wasn't a good quarterback.

And I remember the one day they're like, well, let's try this.

Let's hand it off to Dave.

And because we rarely did run plays, but we were just, you know, we weren't getting anywhere with a pass.

And so they handed it off to me.

And I had a couple guys in front of me, and I get through the line, and I got a couple guys.

And again, I wasn't fast, but dragging those newspapers all over the neighborhood.

I really had strong legs, and I was short, so there wasn't a lot to tackle.

And so they would try to get me, and I would just push through them.

And I remember once there were like three guys, and one guy's on my leg, and one guy's on my shoulder, and another guy, you know, they're trying to get me.

And I just.

I just remember, put your head down, hold on to the ball and keep your legs moving forward.

That was my thing.

All of a sudden, it was like, wait, who is this kid?

And so I never played football in high school, but in terms of backyard football, I became the go to.

It's like, oh, just hand it to Dave.

Nobody can tackle this kid.

And so, again, I could see all the negatives.

But it turns out there are times when you go, oh, wait, this weird thing that you have will come into play.

And so we're all unique.

Each one, it says in the Bible, each one should test their own actions.

Then they can take pride in themselves alone without comparing themselves to someone else.

For each one should carry their own load.

That's Galatians 6, 4.

And so many times we get stuck looking at other people and comparing ourselves to them.

We shouldn't we just do what you can do and use your gifts in 1 Peter 4:10, it says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

And so there are times when we just feel like we're in the dark.

We're like, I don't know what's going on.

I'm in this weird place.

I don't seem like I'm equipped to get through this situation.

And I get it, it's dark.

Maybe you can't see your future.

And it's not until later that when you look at this dark spot in your life and you realize, you know, I thought I was buried.

I felt buried.

It was dark, it was awful.

And it's not that we, we weren't buried.

What was going on is we were planted.

And in time, our unique skills, our insights, our talents, those are going to bloom when they are needed for whoever needs them.

Keep that in mind that sometimes when God says no, what he's really saying is, well, not now, because we don't know.

Again, there's no documentation on being left handed being a negative thing.

We know later in life people used to think you were evil if you were left handed.

But in the case of Ehud, it came in handy.

And God used that to free the Israelites.

So keep that in mind.

You are all unique.

You, me, everybody.

And God can use you.

Moses was a stutterer, you know, Moses was a murderer.

David was not a nice guy at times, right?

He doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called.

And it's just a matter of listening.

And when you hear the call, answer it and do what you feel led to do.

I do want to take a quick second to say thanks to my buddy Ralph.

Check out his shows.

He's got grit and growth business.

He, he's got the financially confident Christian and the truth unveiled.

You can find him@askralph.com he bought me a couple coffees.

I appreciate that after listening to last week's episode.

Thanks so much for that, Ralph.

I deeply appreciate it.

Thanks for listening.

Our website, feedingmyfaith.com if you know somebody who might feel a little left out, you might want to share this with them and let them know that your uniqueness could very well be your strength.

Because God can use you in all situations.

It may just not be time yet, but the last time I checked, he may not come when you want him, but he is always right on time.

Take care.

Hey, every day I gotta test the mind.