A man named Ehud

At LifeGate Church we started as series entitled "Drive-In - Stories of Biblical Proportion" and Pastor Ashley retold the Old Testament story of Ehud.  What makes this story one of those great biblical stories is that Ehud stabs an enormously obese fat king and the fat of the king's belly swallows the sword.  Then all the king's attendants just think that the king is on the "throne" (if you catch my drift) before finding him dead.  It is are really odd and cool story!

Here is my point - Ehud was left handed.  Now in our modern culture this seems like no big deal, but thousands of years ago it was treated like a curse.  Even some fifty years ago, teachers would smack the knuckles of children trying to use their left hand to write.  My kindergarten teacher asked me what hand I threw a ball with I said my right and then proceeded to pick up my pencil with my left.  This was immediately tried to be corrected, but to this day, I write and eat left handed and threw a ball right handed - now you see where the oddities of my brain surface from.

Nevertheless, what everyone else saw as a curse or a handicap in the life Ehud turned out to be the very thing that God used to rescue not just Ehud, but all of Israel.  We all have an Ehud-ness about us.  We all have that thing that seemingly stands in the way of our success.  I have often heard people say that in spite of that thing, they succeeded.  But what if through that one thing everyone else say is a roadblock or a handicap would be the one thing that brought success in your life.  While my head is searching for all these examples of what someone's Ehud-ness might be, it could be anything.  Anything that we or someone else has looked at and said that will be the thing that holds them back. But in reality, it might just be the one thing God chooses to use.

It is the details of this story that I find most interesting.  Ehud had his sword strapped to the inside of his inner right thigh, a place where only a south-paw could draw from.  What if God set you up in such a way that whatever is seemingly your handicap, your obstacle in your life is set up just so only you can use it to win with and not in spite of.  Take it from a fellow lefty!