The Lord has a beautiful way of taking the least of the least and anointing them for His work. When Jesus Christ, His Son, came to Earth, He could have been born in a palace and slept in a cradle of gold. But He was born in a stable in Bethlehem and lay in a feeding trough. His parents were poor, ordinary people. His dad was a carpenter. His family was not among the rich and powerful; they were oppressed by them. I find this is often the path of those called by the Lord. The Apostle Paul said it this way:

(1 Corinthians 1:26-29 NKJV) For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.

"The things which are despised God has chosen." What a powerful statement. Riches and royalty can't buy the anointing. Several of the Apostles Jesus called were simple fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Yet, they became miracle-workers, and the power of God flowed through them. After Peter and John healed a forty-year-old man who had been crippled from birth at the temple gate, the rulers, elders, and scribes were amazed. Even the high priest's prayers didn't have the power of these simple fishermen.

(Acts 4:13 NKJV) Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.

In the Old Testament, the Lord told the prophet Samuel to travel to Bethlehem to Jesse's house, for he had chosen one of his sons to be the next king of Israel. So Samuel traveled to Bethlehem and had Jesse gather his sons, but Jesse called only seven of the eight. When Samuel saw Jesse's oldest son, Eliab, he thought "This is the one," for he was tall, strong, and handsome.

(1 Samuel 16:6-7 NKJV) So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the LORD's anointed is before Him!" But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

The Lord rejected Eliab and then the next six of Jesse's sons. Samuel came to the end of the line and faced a dilemma. The Lord had told him to come and anoint one of Jesse's sons, but then He rejected them all. So Samuel asked him, "Are these all your sons?" Jesse reluctantly admitted there was one more, the youngest, who was out in the field with the sheep.

(1 Samuel 16:10-13 NKJV) Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, "The LORD has not chosen these." And Samuel said to Jesse, "Are all the young men here?" Then he said, "There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep." And Samuel said to Jesse, "Send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he comes here." So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the LORD said, "Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!" Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward.

There is an ancient legend and some commentary from Rabbis that David may have been considered illegitimate or of questionable lineage, which is why he was not in the lineup. Part of this is based on what David wrote in the Psalms:

(Psalm 51:5 NKJV) Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

Nevertheless, the least of the least, the one his family was ashamed of, was the one that God chose. Again, the things which are despised God has chosen.

This message is very personal to me. My mom divorced nine times, and my dad three. I don't even remember many of my step-parents' names, and many of those never bothered to learn mine. They often called me "Carolyn's boy" with a knowing look. In the longest stretch, I was a stepchild and the youngest of thirteen kids. We were dirt poor, raised our own hogs and chickens to eat, and I grew up barefoot and working in the fields of South Carolina.

My dad was a hard-working carpenter. When he went to work in the morning, my stepmom would put my brother and me out in the yard, bring her kids in, and have breakfast. She kept the cereal locked in a cabinet with a padlock. So we would eat bell peppers out of the field for breakfast. I still love them today. If we said anything to Dad, she would laugh and say, "Oh, that's crazy."

Looking back, that section of my childhood was a bit like the Wild West. Sample: We lived down a long dirt road that looped back out to the highway. On a typical Friday evening, you might hear sirens coming and see an old 351 Mustang roar by the house full throttle in a cloud of dust, being chased by a couple of state troopers. It was a stepbrother on the run from the law again. He would fly down the road, use a trick to cross a big ditch just right, and go right back out on the highway. The troopers would often nail the ditch straight on and get stuck. Dad would take his old state yellow Ford truck and go pull them out.

I saw drunken brawls in the yard, in the house, in bars, and in cars. Dad didn't drink, but I saw him get his shirt ripped off more than once trying to break them up. I've had my head beaten against the wall, been set on fire with gas, fallen out of trucks, and flipped end over end in cars before I was ten. You learned to be invisible and keep your head down so it wouldn't get knocked off. Still, I was drinking by six and smoking by ten, tagging along with the others.

When I got old enough to begin to get into more serious trouble, probably twelve or thirteen, a preacher drove up in the yard one Sunday and wanted me to come live with him and his wife through the summer and help in the fields. They lived about an hour away. I had driven a tractor for his son the previous year, and he recommended me. Surprisingly, Dad said yes.

So, I stayed with the preacher and got to see what a real family looked like, at least, from the outside. I was still a servant, but I had all the food I could eat and my own room. I also got to go to church and hear a lot about the Lord. I worked through the week in the tobacco fields and came home on the weekends, saved my money, and soon had the fastest dirt bike in the community. While the other kids couldn't afford gas, I was prospering.

The Lord began preparing me from that year onward, opening the right doors, closing the wrong ones. He put the right people in my life that I could learn from at the right time, and He removed the ones that shouldn't be there. Looking back, I feel incredibly fortunate to have come up the way I did. I had an amazing Dad who taught me to work with my hands, and some bad examples who showed me what I didn't want to grow up to be.

I learned to play music in bands, and now I write songs for the Lord. He taught me to work with computers and networks, to program and write code, and to build websites. Now we are building an online church. I volunteered at church to run sound, projectors, lighting, recording, and video, and we now use those skills daily. I could go on and on about how the Lord prepared us for today. As for writing, it was just a gift that He dropped into my life when I needed it. It was all to prepare me for such a time as this.

You might not be seen as the intellectual in your family, or perhaps your faith in Christ has made you a target. Perhaps your parents put you out in the field while they fed the others, as they did with David, as they did with me. But remember this: those who are rejected by others often become the cherished of the Lord -- the things which are despised God has chosen.

I am surely a fortunate son, His son.

You can pray this with me if you like: