I have a few plants in my home, and one in particular, a Gardenia, is struggling. So I decided to watch some YouTube videos for suggestions on how to deal with the problem of yellow leaves.

I have since learned that Gardenias have a well-earned reputation as the prima donnas of the plant world because of their numerous demands.

One guy caught my attention, not so much by the advice he was giving, but rather by what he had printed on his t-shirt.

It had the words, “God doesn’t want everyone to be famous.”

It really struck me, because it is easy in our modern social media-dominated world to be consumed by more likes, more followers and more views.

But I would add one more line beneath that.

“But God still wants to use you!”

In other words, we don’t have to be famous for the Holy Spirit to use us.

Merlin Kraft attends Calvary Chapel in Plymouth, England. Its location along Britain’s southern coast is an important part of this story.

Kraft also posts regularly on social media under the moniker of BibleladUK. He doesn’t have a massive following. While his 7,500 followers on YouTube are respectable, it is not the hundreds of thousands or millions of followers like some influencers.

His videos average between 2,000 to 3,000 views. Again in the Youtube world that is a drop in the bucket when compared to channels getting tens of millions of views.

But that doesn’t mean God couldn’t use him.

And that is exactly what happened after Kraft posted a video of a person being water baptized in the ocean. He started getting queries from his followers and others about whether they could get baptized in the ocean as well.

After talking to his pastor, Kraft arranged a water baptism at Bigbury-on-Sea, which is 22 miles down the coast from Plymouth.

He was shocked by the response.

Not only did hundreds of people travel to the event from as far away as Scotland and Ireland, but 170 people ended up being water baptized.

“Some of the individual stories will stay with me forever,” Kraft said in an interview with CBN. “A woman on the beach took one of the free Bibles and later decided to be baptised. A young couple travelled from Leeds and walked for hours to reach us. One man travelled alone from Ireland, and an older lady came all the way from Fife in Scotland.”

The Bible also has its share of non-famous people who God used. One of my favourites is Ananias (Acts 9:10-19). He wasn’t a pastor. He wasn’t a prophet. He is only referred to as a disciple living in Damascus.

But God asked him to go to the house of Judas where a man named Saul of Tarsus was staying. Ananias obeyed. He not only healed Saul of his blindness, but also filled him with the Holy Spirit.

While we never hear of Ananias again, Saul became the Apostle Paul and transformed Asia with the Gospel.