Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Do you ever feel like you are a complete mess? You have everyone fooled. They see you and wish they lived like you do and had what you had. You are the go-getting, achiever type who thinks more about others than yourself. However when you are alone within the confines of your bedroom, you know what is true. You see your heart — in fact, you can’t even see all of it because you have some doors locked so tightly you don’t know if you even have a key to them. Even with a partial picture of who you are, you are still able to conclude something is twisted. Even though they don’t see it, you do. All your failures, insecurities, weaknesses, and sin. It makes me cringe when I think about my own.
I was sitting in bed the other night and God dropped the most absurd and random comment into my mind. I knew it was from Him because it is nothing I would have ever dared conjure up myself. He revealed to me one of my spiritual gifts. He might as well hit me with a train because I was totally thrown after hearing Him tell me He gave me this specific one. Once He said it, things started making sense. All my unexplainable behavior all of a sudden was completely explainable. Even after this, I still denied it. How could God give me such a beautiful gift? Why in His holy and good name would He dare trust me with such a responsibility?!
Naturally I took this to my best friend. She was cooking me dinner when I randomly dropped the bomb. She didn’t flinch.
“Tell me more,” she said.
So I did. I probably told her more than she actually cared to hear. Once I finished, she nodded and walked out of the room to go do something. I was so confused and asked her why she was acting so calm. This was a big deal. This was one of the “cool” spiritual gifts….God wouldn’t actually trust me with it…would He?
“I’ve known you’ve had this for a while,” she replied “What?! How!? Why would God trust me with this?”
“Maybe God knows you think very highly of it, and God wants you to know He thinks very highly of you.”
Woah. Wait, God thinks highly of me? Of you, of us?! The more time I thought about what she said, the more I realized she has to be right. God must think highly of me. He has entrusted me to be Jesus to broken, lost people, given me great influence in the career path He has called me to, and given me the responsibility of shepherding His people through some of their darkest nights. I’m talking about some seriously unbelievable things He has trusted me with. Let me list some:
- To witness to an overwhelming amount of Muslim souls
- Care for the abused
- To listen to the silenced
- To sit with the suffering
- To endure mental illness
- To be a role model to middle and high school students
That is a list I would only entrust a very special person with…so why has God trusted me with them? Simple: to give Himself the glory! The article God Uses nobodies by Life Way sums up the answer rather gracefully. Basically, God uses nobodies and He does this on purpose. So He gets the glory while we gain a better understanding of who He is.
What has God entrusted you with? He has given us all many things. Most of the time they are the things that challenge us and make us more dependent on God. Some questions to ask yourself when discerning what God has trusted you with:
Where do I have influence?
What privileges do I have?
Who looks up to me?
What do I do for work?
What am I good at?
Who is a part of my life?
What scares me?
You can’t earn your way to a more important calling by God (trust me on this one) because it is not about you. God chooses whomever He desires to accomplish His purposes (Romans 9:18) because it’s all about Him. We simply need to trust Him and be willing to move the moment He calls us into action resting in His perfect grace the entire way. God thinks very highly of you. Certainly not because you earned it, but because Christ earned it for you (Ephesians 2:8). And that my friends, is a reason to sing.
I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me. Psalm 13:6