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Qualified

Recently, someone posted an image on Facebook that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. It was an image of Joseph, and a very pregnant Mary. But this was a very different image from the serine nativity scenes we have grown accustomed to on holiday greeting cards or traditional Christmas décor. This haunting image placed well known and beloved biblical scenes against a backdrop of present day conflict zones in the Middle East.

IMAGE: DOCTORS OF THE WORLD

I struggle with knowing that while I continue to live my safe, quiet life, there are so many living in fear for their safety, wondering when people will wake up to their insufferable reality. I shudder knowing that today, there’s thousands of families seeking out a safe place to lay their heads. And I continue on in this uncomfortable silence, simply because I believe I am disqualified to make any sort of difference. But I know I’m not alone.

I am confident that I am one among many who wonder what we, as individuals, could possibly offer. I understand the feeling of smallness. In a broken and frazzled world, I understand the frustration of wondering what difference you might actually make. In my own frailty, I allow the cynics to intimidate me from even trying.

But in this season of advent, I am reminded of how God chooses the small to do His greatest work. Laying in a makeshift bed, swaddled in cloth, was God’s son. There in that meager manger God’s promise laid. It was there in that lowly manger that hope for the world was born.

A small, helpless baby. A scared teenage mother. A family on the run looking for refuge. With an unlikely cast of characters, God chose to use a position of weakness to demonstrate His strength.

“Yes, you may feel unqualified, uneducated, untrained, under-gifted or even unworthy.

Yet… those are excellent qualifications for God to do a mighty work.” (Chuck Swindoll)

While we see our smallness or lack of qualifications, God sees possibility. Let this season of advent remind us that while we are unqualified, we serve a God who is not limited by our qualifications or smallness.

Armed with God’s love and His power, let us push past our fear and look for ways, however small, to share the goodness of the gift God sent us in that manager. In a world in desperate need of saving, let us declare that a Saviour has indeed been born. Let the goodness of that news stir our hearts to meet the needs of others. What we have to offer might not be grand. There was no room in the Inn at Bethlehem, but the obedient innkeeper offered what he had – the simple manger. Don’t ever disqualify your gift.

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