God can still use you!

In Luke 2, we see two very different situations.

One story includes an old, childless couple who had long-since given up thinking about having kids.

The other scenario involves a young engaged girl who had never been physically intimate with a man.

If you were going to pick parents for John the Baptist and Jesus, the Savior of the world, you wouldn’t have even looked twice at these people. While their character was certainly right, their situation was all wrong.

But God doesn’t think the same way we do. “The Lord looks at the heart”, not size, experience, or perceived qualities. He told Samuel this much when he was given the task to anoint a king. Those who seemed the most qualified were not those who were ultimately called.

And David was a great King. The problem was that NOBODY–not even Samuel, the man of God–would have chosen him at the time based on his circumstances and in light of the job description. Little did they know about God’s previous and planned preparation in David for this very task.

We agree that character and basic competency are important for a particular assignment, but then we add a pile of further, humanly-discerned essentials. We have a difficult time looking past a person’s present circumstance to imagine what God is shaping them to be or do. And, frankly, some of us are challenged to imagine that we’ll ever have an opportunity to make a very big difference.

But God can still use you…whether or not others see you as a candidate.

God can still use you…even when your present situation does not seem to have you on a path to the thing for which He has called you.

God can still use you…because no matter what others see, if you have been letting Him settle your character and shape your skills in obscurity, and if you are committed to radical obedience in the steps you are yet to take, you are ready for the world-changing thing that can happen through you—RIGHT NOW.

Too young, too old, too inexperienced or too obscure were not things that God was much concerned about when He picked some of the most important people who would ever live. In fact, if you fit any of those descriptions, rejoice! The Lord just may be up to something exciting in and through your life.