Feeling Insignificant - King Melchizedek

Melchizedek, the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High, brought Abram some bread and wine. Melchizedek blessed Abram.

Genesis 14:18-19

When the American astronomer Henry Norris Russell finished a lecture on the Milky Way galaxy at Princeton University, a woman approached him and asked, “If our world is so little, and the universe is so great, can we believe that God really pays any attention to us?” Dr. Russell replied, “That depends, madam, entirely on how big a God you believe in.”

Most men want to feel significant. We want to think that we make a unique difference in the world around us. We want our lives to really matter to the God who created a universe so vast that most of it will probably remain forever undiscovered.

Melchizedek, a priest living in the time of Abram (Abraham), is a relatively unknown biblical character whom God used to accomplish great things for his Kingdom. Melchizedek appears almost as a footnote in Genesis 14:18-20, a snapshot account of his meeting with Abram. Then he disappears, not to be heard of again until centuries later when God announces, seemingly out of nowhere, that the Messiah will be “a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4).

After several more centuries, Melchizedek appears in Scripture again, this time in Hebrews, where the writer likens his ministry to that of Jesus Christ (see Hebrews 5:6-10).

Melchizedek didn’t set out to be compared with Jesus; he was just a priest faithfully serving God in the days of Abram. Although he is a mysterious figure mentioned in only four verses of the entire Old Testament, God had a plan that would give him eternal significance.

God is always at work behind the scenes, pulling rabbits out of hats that you never saw coming. He can use anyone, however obscure, to do great things in his Kingdom.

And he probably won’t tell you what he’s up to!

When you feel small, insignificant, and forgotten, remember Melchizedek. God is equally at work in your life, unfolding a plan for you that he designed long before you were born.