As a kid, you’re small. You are powerless and insignificant in the sight of the world. However, the feeling of insignificance changes when you are out in the backyard with your dad and he says, “Hey, I can’t reach that apple. Get on my shoulders, and I’ll lift you up to reach it for me.” Thinking your dad needs your help to reach the apple, you joyfully leap onto his shoulders, reach up and grab the apple. You hand him the prized fruit and think, “Wow, I’ve done it for dad.”

When you get older and more mature, you realize your dad was always tall enough to reach the apples. You might wonder, “Why would he make me believe he needed me when he could do it by himself?” But there are a few things you learn up there on dad’s shoulders: trust that he would let you fall short of the goal or let you fall,

- You trusted him to pick you up, hold you high enough that you wouldn’t fall short of the goal and that when you needed to come down, he didn’t let you fall.

- He made you feel special and needed.

- It built your relationship with your father. You grew closer to him when you worked alongside him.

So many times I find myself thanking God for using me. Recently, I stopped and thought: “Why do I thank God for using me?” In typical situations, we do not thank those who give us work to do. But I think we say thank you because we recognize we’re not worthy to serve God, but God is worthy to be served. So we are grateful that God chooses to use us.

How do we know He is worthy to be served? What evidence do we have? I realized I thank God for using me because I know He doesn’t need me. God is omnipotent and can do anything on His own and with His own capability, should He choose. Despite the fact that God is all-powerful, He chooses to use powerless mistake-makers and stumblers, who when allowed to look through God’s lenses, can see possibilities and power.

And so I realize, just like a kid on dad’s shoulders, God uses us, small as we are. He uses us for us. Through our work for Him, we learn and experience the same we did on dad’s shoulders when picking apples:

- To trust God in all situations that He will hold us high enough for the calling He’s given us. [Exodus 3:11,12]

- He will use us no matter how small we are. [Mark 1:16-20 & Luke 2:8-10]

- He will hold us up and won’t let us fall. [Psalm 91:4, 11-12]

At times, I’ve spoken with other Christians who have been on missions trips or were involved in ministries in which they had exerted much time, effort and emotion. Almost 100 percent of the time, I hear, “I thought I was going there to touch lives, to heal and to minister to others, but I was the one who was touched … who was healed … who was ministered to.” We always wonder, “How did I give when I felt all I really did was receive?” That’s because God chooses to use us. He uses us for us.

I wonder: If God didn’t use us, how many Christians would there be? If we felt God truly didn’t need us or want to use us, we wouldn’t feed the poor, care for the helpless or go on mission trips. If we never went, we would not see the miracles, nor the grace, nor His power at work. If we never saw firsthand that saving grace or mighty power, we wouldn’t desire to worship Him as we do. But because God knows that we need to see evidence of His ultimate power in our world as we know it, He stoops down, puts us on His shoulders and allows us to help him reach the “apples” in all of the branches of the Earth.