unQUALIFIED

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)

When asked what profession I have, I never quite know what to say. I studied English and Spanish, but I’m not a certified teacher. I taught ESL for a while after graduating, and now these degrees are useful on a daily basis, but they are not the foundation of what I do. I’m basically a mom, but sometimes people want to know what qualifications I have for the missions work and children’s work that I do.
None.
According to university standards, government job pre-requisites, legal or technical know-how… I really am unqualified to do this -- And boy do I feel it!!! There are so many situations that I don’t know how to manage!
I feel particularly unqualified when dealing with the kids’ sexuality, and hoping to encourage healthy development in that area. With their backgrounds, which –generally speaking— do not provide good examples and precedents of loving relationships, commitment, and healthy sexuality, I find myself asking God, “WHY ME?!” Why on earth would he have me dealing with these issues and supposedly teaching his children to grow up into healthy women and men who know how to take care of and respect themselves and others, and who can walk in the tension of every human being – physical AND spiritual, neither animal nor angel (as Rob Bell puts it so well in his book Sex God).
Yet, when I recently felt so unprepared and helpless and useless and undesiring-of-this-responsibility, the Holy Spirit brought this scripture to my mind:

“At that time Jesus said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” (Matthew 11:25-26)

What a thought! What a truth! God delights in using the unwise, unqualified, and uncapable to fulfill his perfect will!
A day or two after that, I received a letter confirming it – Isaiah 55 invites the thirsty to come and buy without money. What we most need, we can’t provide ourselves, but he makes the way. Because his thoughts are not my thoughts and his ways are not my ways. So, even though I would be a lot more comfortable with someone more qualified, trained, or wise to take care of the really complicated issues, that’s not how it is right now. I know that I “can’t” and he seems to think that that’s perfect: that way, anything good, any transformation, will obviously be OF GOD, and not have anything to do with my abilities! Dependency, not self-sufficiency!