While going through my Bible reading for the day, I was struck again by the way God chooses to use the people we would never want on our teams as the means by which he accomplishes his plans. Particularly in this passage from 2 Kings 7, we see four men who are banished from society because they have leprosy.

To add to their disgrace, they were also at the end of their rope. There was a famine happening, they would have been weak and tired. They had nothing left to lose, so they decided to surrender themselves to the Arameans with the hope that they might be given some mercy. They ended up finding the military camp empty because of God’s intervention and brought back news of what they saw.

This account points to the shepherds hearing the good news of Jesus’ birth in a really cool way. In much the same way that lepers were not permitted to be a part of normal society, shepherds were also isolated. They lived where their sheep could pasture. While important to the local economies and food supplies, they were not esteemed like the religious elite.

And yet, that is who God chose to proclaim his good news to.