When God called Gideon to lead Israel out from under the rule of the Midianites, He didn’t exactly find a Type A self-assured leader oozing with charisma or confidence. Even though the angel called him a mighty hero, Gideon does a double-take with a “Who, me?” glance around him.

“I’m from the weakest clan in the weakest tribe of Manasseh. Furthermore, I am the least qualified of my pitiful family” he stutters. (Judges 6)

At a time of national disgrace for Israel Samuel approaches young Saul and tells him that he is the focus of all Israel’s hope! Saul’s reply? “But I’m only from the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest tribe in Israel, and my family is the least important of all the families of that tribe!” I Samuel 9:21 New Living Translation

It sounds like both Gideon and Saul had the same script writer for their lives.

In a culture that looks for the most suave, the most articulate, the strongest, the most handsome or beautiful … and denigrates those who don’t fit those qualifications, it’s no wonder that we don’t feel we measure up.

But God doesn’t page through GQ to find his man. He doesn’t consult the latest volume of Who’s Who In America to come up with his candidate who will change the world. Prestige and political connections are meaningless to him. He could care less about physical attractiveness, physical prowess or the ability to be philosophically sophisticated.

So what is God looking for? What kind of credentials is he interested in? His answer could put the public relations industry out of work. “… but this is the man to whom I will look and have regard: he who is humble and of a broken or wounded spirit, and who trembles at My word and reveres My commands.” Isaiah 66:2 Amplified Bible

If we’re not careful we shun the very attributes God is searching for!

Pay careful attention to the words of the Apostle Paul: “Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of ‘the brightest and the best’ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God.”  I Corinthians 1:26-31 The Message

This week as you present yourself to God, give Him something He can really work with and blow your horn for God, not yourself!

And find great joy for your journey!