When I was 12 I auditioned for my middle school’s musical. It was Aladdin and that was a HUGE deal because it’s one of my favorite Disney movies. Before this point in my life, I had never been on stage. Not once was I in any theater group or choir of any sort. I was, however, an extremely outgoing kid so I decided to try out. Let us note that I thought I was great. I thought I was unstoppable. The bee’s knees. The cat’s pajamas. When I stepped on that stage for my audition, the heavens opened up and I nailed every line. No doubt, I had it in the bag. The roles were posted the next day outside the auditorium and everyone was buzzing around the list. I searched through the names and found it. This was it! My way to Broadway! The part…….
Townsperson 12.
No joke. Not even 1 or 2. Eleven other middle schoolers were chosen before they finally decided to give little Anna Ganter a line in the play. Don’t feel too bad, though. I nailed the part of townsperson 12. And boy was I proud. At that time in my life for that role, I was inadequate. I was legitimately unqualified. And you know what? The girl who played Jasmine? Rocked it.
Fast forward ten years. Graduated from college and out in the “real world.” I was fortunate enough to be hired on as a long term sub for a sixth grade math class. My first day teaching, the only thing I could think of was, “Holy cats, I am 22. I am 22 and responsible for teaching 140 ‘gifted and talented’ sixth graders. There is NO WAY I’m at all qualified to do this.”
There are countless times where we feel inadequate or unqualified for a role we have in life. This past summer, I felt God start to pull at my heart. My heart started to ache in a way that it never had before for the people around the world who had never heard of Jesus. Now I am committed to traveling the world spreading the Gospel. This is the most unprepared, inadequate, and unqualified I have ever felt in my life. I’ve never gone to school to study the Bible or worked in a church. But I love Jesus so much that some days I can hardly handle it. And thank goodness that God is so much greater than everything that I fall short of.
It’s times like these when I love to read about ordinary people in the Bible who fail. Because you know what? God uses them. He loves to use the underdog and unqualified to do awesome things: Jacob deceived his father to gain his favor; Sarah laughed at God when He told her that she would give birth; and Paul murdered Christians.
The list goes on and on. In fact, Jesus’ 12 closest followers? All uneducated. God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called. I really love what L’Engle Walking says about this. He says, ” In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept hard evidence lack of qualification, and there’s no danger in that we will confuse gods work with our own or gods glory with our own.”
So in two days when I board the plane to Georgia for training to be a missionary, I can rest easy. Spreading God’s love is not an easy task and should not be taken lightly. However, I know that the Lord will move mountains as he always does. So wherever you are in life, whatever the Lord is calling you to do, always give 100% regardless of how inadequate or unqualified you feel. But know that God is going to do amazing things in and through you because that’s just who He is and what He does. So go ahead and shine on, Townsperson 12. Shine on.
