It Only Took 4 Minutes

You've no doubt heard the name Jason MacElwain. Jason is the high school senior from Rochester, New York who was the manager for his high school basketball team. While Jason loved basketball, he was never good enough to make his team, so he decided to be the team manager. At the teams' last home game, the coach decided to put Jason into the game. He wanted to show his appreciation to Jason for all of his hard work and dedication. What happened after that was simply unbelievable.

Jason entered the game with only four minutes to play and proceeded to hit 6 three-pointers and score 20 points in those final 240 seconds. An amazing feat on any level of basketball, even more amazing considering Jason has autism.

I must admit that watching the video of this high school boy playing the role of unlikely hero brought tears to my eyes. The student section in the gymnasium went crazy for Jason and carried him off the floor after the game was over.

I couldn't help but see the spiritual parallel of how God seems to use the most unlikely of people to accomplish great things. If you've ever felt unlikely like I have - that's good news for you and me!

1 Samuel 17 illustrates this beautifully by showing us that things weren't going so well for God's army as they lined up against the Philistine army. They were cowering in fear unable to meet the challenge of the behemoth named Goliath. That's when God went to His bullpen and brought in an unlikely hero in the form of a seventeen year old shepherd boy named David. Before he went out to meet Goliath, David makes a powerful statement of faith in verse 29, "Is there not a cause?" The rest, as they say, was history.

In a matter of moments God used a most unlikely person to win an unlikely victory. In a few seconds, everything was different. The outlook had changed. Men went from fear to celebration.

The truth is if we, like David, will be faithful to the Lord and trust Him no matter what - there is nothing that our God can't accomplish through us!