Are You Guilty of Profiling?

"Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God." 2Cor. 3:5

 

  I'll never forget the time I got a letter asking me to pray about going on a mission trip overseas. I tossed the letter in the trash immediately. I thought, "God is not calling me to go. I just know it!" 

Several weeks later, the director of our mission group asked if I'd prayed about the trip. I said I had not. He asked why  not. "Because I have no money to go."

 The wise leader gently answered, "My experience has been that if God wants you to go, He will provide the means to get there."

 I knew this was true. But I had other reasons for not considering the call. I had an idea in my head of the kinds of people who do those kinds of things. They are usually white, wealthy, young, and either married to a person who also has a call to foreign missions or single with a call to missions from the womb. None of that was true of me. So, no, God was NOT calling me to go on a trip like that.

 

Do you see what I was doing? I was guilty of profiling myself right out of a call from God.   

                                                                                  

Moses did it.  God called him to go to Egypt and  tell Pharaoh to unhand God's people. Immediately Moses took inventory of his inadequacies. He was not a good speaker, he didn't have charisma or social pull  which meant no one would listen to him. (Exodus 4:10)

 Jeremiah did it. He said he didn't have enough experience or public speaking skills. (Jeremiah 1:6)

Gideon did it. He assumed God never called the runt of the litter to do anything big for Him. (Judges 6:15)

 We all do it. We have an idea of the characteristics (usually positive ones) God requires for a specific task. Then we measure our own characteristics (usually negative ones) against those positive ones. Then we stamp "APPLICATION DENIED" on ourselves before ever giving God a chance to give us His perspective.               

                                                                    God Says To Stop It

 Here is good news: The only profile God wants  you to fit  is possession of an obedient heart. He doesn't need anything else. He fills in the gaps and it is oh so wonderful the way He does!  (more on that in my next blog)

So please stop profiling and just start obeying. Profiling  puts locks on the doors God wants you to walk through. Obedience picks those locks and lets the adventures begin!

 

Talk About It: In what way might you be guilty of profiling yourself out of a call from God?