The Call of the Unqualified

During the middle of the summer of 2012, in the midst of Fourth of July parties and hot dogs and barbecues and rock and roll, I was asked a very anxiety-inducing and daunting question by a close neighbor. 

“Will you mentor my daughter?” 

I remember turning to look behind me, sure she wasn’t speaking to me, sure she had the wrong girl; the wrong wide-eyed, long-legged, Bambi-limbed, eleven-year-old girl.

The word, “What?” made it out of my dumbfounded lips, if not already readable on my face, with a thoughtless blink following close behind. 

I stood there staring.

She asked again. 

“Will you mentor my daughter?”

To be honest, I had no idea what she was asking; no idea what “mentoring” even meant. 

“You know, go to the coffee shop with her, sit down and talk with her, be a big sister to her.” 

I nodded as if I understood.

“I just think you could be a really great example to her, and it doesn’t have to be anything crazy, just talk to her about the Bible and Jesus and stuff.”

“I guess,” I shrugged, totally oblivious to the weight of this monumental question, the honor of this question. 

Our neighbor left with a satisfied grin, somehow pleased with my timid and less-than-enthusiastic response, and I turned away, brows furrowed, wondering what in the world I had just gotten myself into. 

What could I possibly impart onto her daughter that was worth anything of value? What could I, simple and young Elizabeth, share with her daughter?

And yet she asked so boldly, so joyously, for me to mentor her daughter. She asked as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

It puzzled me. 

And yet a nagging feeling pulled at the back of my mind. 

I felt unqualified. 

Yet, I also felt called. 

A few weeks later, I ended up taking her daughter out to a local coffee shop at the corner of our neighborhood where we sat and ate lemon pound cake and scones, and talked about elementary school and church and the likes, but, in the end, the mentorship fizzled out, and our neighbor never asked me about it again.

In truth, I was pleased it had ended.

I didn't feel qualified to be a mentor.

But over the years, I could never shake that feeling, never get rid of that loose thread in the back of my mind; the thread connecting me to my calling.

From the very beginning, there has been an ever-persistent, never-ending call inside me to become something more.  And the gift of it was that it made me a dreamer, but the heartache of it was that I was also a realist. 

I felt called to be more. I felt something being placed on my heart, knowing, with absolute certainty, that this is what I was meant to do with my life, but I felt unqualified, unworthy, ill-equipped.

Many, many years passed where I struggled with the idea of becoming more. Wondering, is the price of reality worth the cost of the dream? Is this really the direction I should tread? Do I have anything of value to share with the world? Do I have any wisdom to impart? Do people care what I have to say? Do people really need people? How can I impact the world just by being me? How can I stand before others, flawed and sinful, and share with them all the things I’ve learned: the good, the bad, and the ugly? Am I qualified for any of this?

And then I read a quote that changed my life, a quote I have not forgotten from the moment it graced my presence: “God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.”

In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses the church in Corinth through one of his many epistles, writing:

“When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.” — 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.

Paul was a murderer, a persecutor of Christians, and through a divine and miraculous encounter, he changed his entire outlook on Christianity and Christ. He had blood so caked on his hands, it made many wonder how Jesus could have taken one look at Paul and thought, “He’s qualified.” And many threw metaphorical stones, questioning how Paul felt qualified to teach and evangelize the Good News of Jesus Christ when he was so blatantly unqualified.

Paul did not come bearing the news of Jesus Christ with fancy words and eloquent speech, nor did he come dressed in glory and blameless before all. And he is frank with them about that from the start. He knows he is unqualified, he knows that it is not through himself alone he is able to share the Gospel, nor through his power alone that he is able to influence the world for Jesus Christ.

God qualified the unqualified.

God qualified Paul.

For God chooses the most unlikely people imaginable to do His will.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” — Ephesians 2:10

God knew exactly what He was doing when He called Paul. He called Paul to not only lean on His power but to become a fisher of men, a kingdom worker, as he had been called to be from the very beginning, as God had prepared in advance for him.

God knew Paul’s past, his flaws, his sins, his shortcomings, his misgivings, his insecurities, his fears, his plans, and his future.

And yet, He still called Paul.

God calls us in the same way. He calls us, not only to fulfill our calling for His Kingdom but to step out in faith, to rely on His power, rather than our own.

Too many times, we lean on our own understanding of how things are, when God sees the bigger picture, the whole puzzle.

God sees the bigger picture in us.

The same way my neighbor saw something in me at eleven years old that she felt could be vital to her daughter’s upbringing, even for a brief coffee shop visit. And even though the coffee shop visits didn’t last long, I was still “mentoring” her daughter, still being an unknowing example to her. It was inevitable, really, as we lived two houses down from each other.

And maybe my neighbor was just planting a seed, some food for thought, letting me know, in her wild and crazy and joyous way, that her daughter was watching me, learning from me, even without me knowing.  

Paul urges us to remember who we were before our calling before the seed had been planted, penning:

“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.” — 1 Corinthians 1: 26-27

Again, God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called.

If anyone knows me, they know that my favorite book of all time is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is, perhaps, in my humble opinion, the greatest story ever told. Yet, it took me years to understand why.

It was not just because of the fantastical world-building, the dominating dark powers, the whimsical and intrinsic lore, the complex and dynamic characters. No. It was the fact that the hobbits were the heroes.

If you are not familiar with the story, the Ruling Ring, an ancient and terrible piece of jewelry, containing the power to dominate all life when worn by its master, is found after generations of peace and rest amongst Middle-earth. Gandalf, one of the wizards of Middle-earth, employs the help of young Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit of the Shire.

Standing at around the size of a small child, Hobbits are looked down upon throughout all of Middle-earth for their stature and simplistic way of life. They like their gardens, and their tea, and their pipes, and their fancy parties, and their second breakfast.

They enjoy the simple life. Relish it.

They are not wise like the Elves, nor are they strong like the Dwarves, nor are they brave like the Men. They, in actuality, are content in their quiet corner of the world. And they are not ashamed to admit it.

Yet, Gandalf employs Frodo to destroy the Ruling Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, which turns out to be a dangerous and treacherous quest conducted by a quite small person against quite long odds.

But why would Gandalf want Frodo Baggins to destroy the Ring?

Because Gandalf was using “the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

For even a Hobbit of the Shire, simple and unassuming, could change the course of Middle-earth forever and do more good than he could have ever imagined.

Desperate to learn anything and everything about Tolkien, I read an autobiography about him several years ago. I wanted to know how he could write such a compelling, gut-wrenching, hope-instilling book, revolving around one fantastical world; how he could dedicate his life to these fictionalized, imaginary friends of his. And in the biography, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, Carpenter wrote something quite extraordinary, penning,

“…the hobbits represent the combination of small imagination with great courage which (as Tolkien had seen in the trenches during the First World War) often led to survival against all chances. ‘I’ve always been impressed,’ he once said, ‘that we are here, surviving, because of the indomitable courage of quite small people against impossible odds.’”

Maybe that’s what my neighbor had been trying to tell me at eleven years old: that I was qualified for the quest, no matter how small I was, no matter how flawed, or weak, or young, or ill-equipped, or underqualified.

I was qualified because God made me qualified, and God had prepared, in advance, for me to grow up on the same street as her daughter and be an unknowing example and light to her just by being myself. 

But even now …

Do I come with fancy words and eloquent speech? No.

Do I stand before you holy and blameless? No.

Am I quite a small person against impossible odds? Yes.

Can God use that?

Yes.