We discovered that Caedmon was a simple laborer at Whitby Abbey, a monastery in England in the 7th century. While the monks there were able to create verse and sing, he was unable to do the same and would often retreat to tend to the animals whenever the others would share their songs. One night he had a vision and heard a voice instructing him to sing. He replied that he did not know how, but the voice repeated its instruction, and in his dream he sang verses about Creation that he had never heard before. Upon awakening, he recalled the words from his song and shared them with the learned men of the monastery, who acknowledged he had been given a Divine gift. When the monks shared other Scriptures with him, he turned those stories into verse. They instructed him to take on the monastic habit, and he continued learning about Scripture and composing vivid poetry that could be shared, making those precious texts accessible to everyday people.
1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (NIV)
26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him.
Wow. God really does use the simple, the lowly, the often-overlooked...for His glory! He used an illiterate cowherd to share beautiful verses so that others - the simple and lowly - could have access to His Word. We want our baby boy to remember that God can, and does, use anyone for His purposes, that our gifts are from Him, and that we should use them to glorify Him and share His Word with others. Like Caedmon.
Since I didn't get any of our earliest photos on here, I'll post one now...what a difference 14+ weeks makes!
Posts
