Just Like Us

He was the only U.S. president who reached the Oval Office without first winning election as president or vice president. Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States, never aspired to be the man in the White House. His only desire was to reach the top of the Congressional hierarchy as Speaker of the House.

Ford had served for eight years as House Minority Leader when scandals began to plague Vice President Spiro Agnew. After Agnew resigned, President Richard Nixon (who was beginning to feel the heat of Watergate) asked congressional leaders who should be Agnew’s successor. They gave him no choice but Ford, who eventually replaced Nixon as president when Watergate blew up. “I have not sought this enormous responsibility, but I will not shirk it,” Ford said when he took up the reigns.

Ford’s words capture the attitude of the writers of the Bible. Those who were chosen to be God’s spokesmen often did not aspire to be authors of the Word of God. The Lord did not commission angels to write the Scriptures, but ordinary yet God-fearing people with, as today’s text states, “a nature like ours.” Indeed, King David, one of the most prolific writers of the Old Testament, committed serious sins.

Bible writers often worked under difficult circumstances to present God’s messages. Gerald Ford could relate. He wrote: “History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.” That’s certainly true when it comes to the inspiration of the Bible, a light that shines brightly through humble people like you and me.

Apply It:

Ask yourself, “Am I resistant to the Word of God?” Read what happened to God’s written word from the prophet Jeremiah in the days of King Jehoiakim. (See Jeremiah 36.)

Dig Deeper:

Numbers 22–24; Habakkuk 1; Jonah 1:1–3; 4:1–11

Key Bible Texts

Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. (James 5:17 KJV)