What makes a prophet a prophet?

As I stood on the mount looking down on the little village of Tishbe mjxt outside of Jerash, Jordan, I wondered how God decide who should be a prophet and who shouldn’t. Tishbe is where the prophet Elijah as born. You might remember that Elijah appeared with Moses at the Transfiguration of our Lord. I would say that makes him a very important character in salvation history.

Tishbe is a very unassuming village nestled in a valley that looks like many other of the beautiful valleys of Jordan. There ‘s nothing outstanding about it in terms of evidence that a great prophet was born there. Elijah could just as well have been born in any little village anywhere  in the world. And, in fact, God not only could have chosen any village in which to bring forth a prophet, but he would have chosen and man or woman to  be his prophet.

It didn’t have to be Elijah, but it was.

Why God chose him, no one can know for certain.

Did Elijah have special qualities that gave God indication that he should be given the arduous mission  of confronting King Ahab so that Israel would return to the Lord? What made God think that Elijah had what it took to prophecy?

As we drove back through Jerash, I mulled this over in my head and realized that my thinking was backwards.

Elijah didn’t give God indication that he should be a prophet. God gave Elijah indication that he should be a prophet.

Elijah didn’t need to have any special qualities at all. God was the one with the special qualities, and all Elijah had to do was open himself to God’s grace and direction.

This hit home with me when we met this evening with the Mayor of Amman, Akel Biltaji. The Mayor is an exceptionally gracious man with an exceptional memory for people and places! He knows the United States well, and was able to offer comment on each of our home towns. I was delighted to find out that his wife had attended medical school just a few miles from my house! But I digress.

Mayor Biltaji spoke a bit about how he works with his staff and carries out the “business” of administration of a city with a population of more than a million people. He shared with us that he tells his staff that they must have “a vision, a mission, and a passion.”  He then spoke to us about our mission as journalists abroad, and in particular our mission to go back home and tell the story of Jordan and how the government and people here live a passion of compassion. He pointed out that we hadn’t been called to this trip by accident, but on purpose

The mayor’s words took me back to my earlier pondering about Elijah. Elijah was chosen by God to tell a story of his own, so to speak. Those of us in my group of journalist/bloggers were chosen to tell a story of our own as we travel the eastern part of the Holy Land. At least a few of us have expressed our sense of surprise – even disbelief – at being chosen for this adventure, some on very short notice. We all come from our own unassuming villages and are indeed prophets of sorts, although definitely as great as Elijah was.

You, too, are a prophet. In your own way, you’re called to a special mission given to you by God because of the special qualities he’s given you. You might have your own King Ahab to confront or a group of Israelites who need to be turned back to God. God has called you from your own unassuming village for a special task. What is it?