Do you feel insignificant? Unworthy? Too sinful to be used, perhaps? Maybe you don’t feel anything that dramatic, but you don’t have grand plans for your life–and certainly don’t think God has any for you either. You may think God loves you, but have never considered He would use you.

I’d like to challenge that.

God very often chooses the one that no one else would have. The Bible is full of examples of God using the least likely person to deliver a victory, share a message from Him, or perform a miracle. It’s basically His way of ensuring we catch that He is the one in control.

There is no one better that I can think of as a Biblical example as the disciple Peter. This guy gets a bum rap sometimes. He is impulsive, rash and emotional. In Matthew 16 Jesus tells the disciples of His upcoming death and resurrection, to which Peter rebukes him and says, “Never, Lord! This should never happen to you!” And you know what Jesus does? Rebukes him right back, even calling him Satan… Not sure I’d get over that one. He goes on to say that Peter has human concerns on his mind, where Jesus’ has God’s plan in mind.

Then it gets worse for ole Peter. Right before the crucifixion Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him three times, to which Peter denies he would ever do that. Before Jesus is arrested he takes Peter, James and John to keep watch while he prays–and they all fall asleep. Jesus asks can’t you stay awake for one hour? And then they fall asleep AGAIN. Right after that guards come to take Jesus away and Peter takes out a sword and cuts the ear off of one of them. Talk about impulsive. Jesus once again has to rebuke Peter, graciously heals the man and says that Peter doesn’t get what is happening, there is a much bigger plan at play.

Then comes the height of Peter’s failure. Jesus has been taken and the disciples scatter in fear. Peter is lurking around and when spotted and asked, denies that he knows Jesus. The third time he’s asked he “began to call down curses,” swore to them he didn’t know Jesus. And immediately the rooster crowed–exactly what Jesus predicted. We are told that Peter went out and wept bitterly. I’m confident I’d have done the same.

Ok, so now what? What’s the point in all this? Things are about to drastically change for Peter, and all followers of Jesus for that matter. But not quite yet. After the resurrection Peter interacts with Jesus, which had to be intense and weird and thrilling and scary. We still see some old habits of Peter creep up (read John 21:15-23). But this is the part of the story where everything changes, where if this was a movie some really intense music would start and we’d see everyone walk in slow motion.

The Holy Spirit shows up.

Before ascending to heaven Jesus tells His disciples to wait for “the gift my Father promised.” He tells them they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit and will receive power. This very event happens shortly after. Acts 2 describes in dramatic fashion how it all went down–and everything feels different afterwards.

Just a few verses later our friend Peter stands up in front of a crowd and preaches. I mean he preaches. Read through Acts 2 and you’ll see him throw down truth, recap Old Testament prophecy, call for repentance and lay out the plan of salvation—like a boss. He is eloquent, he is factual and he is nothing like the Peter we saw before. Why? Because he is full of the Holy Spirit. It’s a Gamechanger.

So what does that mean for you and me? We too can rely on the Holy Spirit, we too can be filled with His power. This in no way means we’ll never make mistakes, Peter surely did after his infilling, but it does mean we have a supernatural resource we can tap into. I encourage you to study the scriptures to see how the Holy Spirit works, what He does and just who He is. Pray to be filled, pray for His discernment and ask for Him to empower you in new ways.

Just might be a gamechanger for you too.