God Doesn’t Call the Qualified. He Qualifies the Called.
Have you ever felt unworthy?
It can be horrifying — to know you’ve been called, but maybe feeling like you’ve messed up your chance, don’t know enough, or are lacking what so many others seem to have. You stumble on what’s been done to you, or what you’ve done, or how much other people are probably more worthy than you.
There’s good news, though, because scripture is full of people just like that.
In fact, one of the most consistent themes in the Bible is God choosing to use the weakest, the least qualified, and the most unlikely of heroes. God delights in working with those who don’t look the part, who cannot do it without Him, and who seem to be the least likely.
Take Gideon.
An ordinary farmer hiding away from his enemies, threshing grain, a man from an unremarkable background of an ordinary tribe. He even says to the angel that commands him to answer God’s call, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” (Judges 6:15 NIV)
But God saw something different.
Even after Gideon gathered an army of 32,000 soldiers, God intentionally made Gideon’s army smaller. From the outside, it was beyond foolish — suicidal even — to go from 32,000 men to 300. By doing this, God removed all doubt whose victory the battle would truly belong to.
God was qualifying the 300. That’s all He needed.
Sure enough, the battle was won.
From a trembling soldier to a stammering prophet.
Look at Moses, who was called to speak for an entire nation despite having a deathly fear of public speaking and a stuttering issue.
Or Ruth, a foreign homeless widow whose faithfulness in the Lord modeled to a faithless people.
Or Rahab, a street prostitute, who was called by God to make a way for Israel and from her line came David, and ultimately Jesus.
Sometimes God allows our strength to be reduced before He reveals His. It’s a hard lesson, but it reminds us that God’s redemptive victory is not about might — but about dependence. When our striving, feeble attempts and abilities fade, God’s glory shines brightest. And often, it is only when we’ve tried every self-sufficient dead end that we can truly collapse into God’s mighty arms.
Then there’s David.
A shepherd boy, an overlooked son, shuffled off into the woods rather than living in comfort at his father’s house. When Samuel the priest went to Jesse’s house looking for God’s anointed, David wasn’t even invited into the lineup of Jesse’s sons.
Samuel felt the prompting that there was something missing. “Jesse, do you have any more sons?” Jesse hadn’t even mentioned David until he was specifically asked. David was so unqualified in everyone’s eyes, even his own father’s, yet it was this shepherd boy who would become a legend throughout the world and Israel’s greatest king.
When every single Israelite soldier would run at the mere mention of Goliath, David stood and asked, “Why run?” When David’s older brother said, “You abandoned your post with the sheep. Go back to them, you have no place here.” David again said, “Why run? My place is here.”
I love that in David’s response, there is a clear mirror to his older brother and the army of soldiers, that it was they who abandoned their calling, not David, for their fear and lack of trust in God.
David gets placed in front of Saul, as a sort of laughing stock, and yet says “Let me face the giant.” When Saul asks him “Why? You are just a young boy,” David challenges him and even starts to list his resume: “Yes I’m young. But I faced lions, bears, and wolves. And each time my God was faithful to me. And this time He will be too.” (Paraphrased, read 1 Samuel 17)
David slays the giant with a small, ordinary rock from a simple stream. Not because he was brave, or musical, or smart, or because he had killed lions and bears before. Not because he was loyal or kind.
But because his heart was willing.
And out of all the titles David accrued throughout his life — giant-slayer, temple-builder, conqueror, warrior-king, and so much more, the one he is most renowned for is simply “a man after God’s own heart.”
That title still resounds today, because even despite his darkest failures through adultery, murder, and deceit, David was willing to repent and to trust God. It was through his disqualifications that He was used. It was in his weakness that God met him. Right where he was at. And David was restored and honored.
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God’s call is not based on performance.
It is based on posture of the heart.
I see this sentiment all the time but it is so true in my own life:
God doesn’t waste stories.
He redeems them.
Every scar, every failure, every shadowed corner of a life can become the very same place He displays His glory.
God often does not use you or me despite our weaknesses, but often uses us through our weaknesses.
Paul knew this deeply. Even he begged God three times to take away his “thorn in the flesh,” and each time, God said no. Yet it was through Paul’s weakness that he realized how much more he could serve those around him.
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” — 2 Corinthians 12:8–10 NIV
Maybe the most powerful thing is not removing the thorn, but redeeming the thorn.
Sometimes we feel overqualified. Pride fills us. In these feelings, whispers reach out to us, “Why do you even need God? Look what you can do!”
The lie of self-sufficiency.
The lie of autonomy.
You can do this on your own.
And there stands Samson. Tall and proud. The Nazirite priest-warrior with supernatural strength. The ultimate qualifications to be the judge of Israel.
Yet through compromise after compromise, Samson stripped himself of his integrity, his faith, and who he was called to be. God gave chance after chance, and still Samson compromised.
Samson’s Nazarite vow was a lifelong commitment to God. In it, Samson swore to abstain from wine, not cut his hair, and avoid contact with any dead bodies. He felt invincible to his enemies and beat them time and time again.
First, Samson ate honey from a lion’s carcass.
And still, God gave him mercy.
Second, Samson married a pagan woman and became drunk repeatedly. And still, God gave him mercy.
Finally, Samson allowed his hair to be cut.
He lost his strength. He was captured, enslaved, and Israel suffered for it. Samson, who was supposed to be an example, the hero who was born into the perfect family with all the right qualifications, threw it all away for his vanity.
And still, God gave him mercy.
For it was in Samson’s most weakest state: blind, beaten, and chained that Samson repented — and God met him in his brokenness, and through Samson’s surrender was when God used him in the mightiest way. Even with all his failures, Samson still appears among the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11.
When you feel small — remember Gideon’s 300 or Moses’ stutter.
When you feel unseen — remember David’s forgotten anointing.
When you feel you’ve done something too wrong to be redeemed — remember Samson’s broken covenant.
When you feel like something’s been done to you, remember Ruth’s faithfulness.
When you feel like your pain or weakness doesn’t matter, remember Jesus.
For He certainly thought of you on the cross.
If you are waiting to feel “ready,” stop waiting.
God’s strength begins where your strength ends.
There is no perfect or “ready enough” milestone to reach.
Just a willing heart.
So whether you are addicted, abused, a refugee, an Olympian, disabled, divorced, married, single, a child, or an old man, give your weaknesses and give your fears to God and watch Him work.
God does not see you by the labels the world gives you.
A forgotten shepherd, a widowed outsider, a fallen hero, a hiding laborer, a prostitute, or a stutterer, the list goes on and on.
These are all different platforms for God’s redeeming grace to stand tall.
The world celebrates strength, but God seeks the surrendered.
“May the Lord heal our wounds and deploy our scars.” - Stephen Foster of St Aldates Church in Oxford
