A Nature Like Ours

I have been so encouraged by this phrase in James 5.17:  Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

Why is that encouraging?  Because if God can (and did!) do great things through Elijah, maybe it wasn't the "nature like ours" that qualified him...or more pointedly, disqualified me.

John the Baptist doubted from a jail cell.  "Is it you or should we be looking for someone else?"  He wondered if he had bet on the wrong horse, been drafted by the wrong team.  He knew the guy named Jesus.  But did he know Him?

Job wanted to die because he felt like he had done it all right and it all gone so wrong.  It would've been better had he not been born.  He couldn't even get compassion from his wife, who apparently wanted Job's life insurance money since she told him just to go ahead and curse God and die.

Jonah wanted to die because God had shown mercy to people that Jonah didn't like and Jonah hadn't grown past 8th grade spiritually and so was still acting like he was in junior high.  The repentance of the Ninevites was more obedient than the squawking of the prophet of God.

A nature like ours.

Like mine.

I can find myself in the situations above.  And God used every one of them.

But that's just me thinking thoughts...