Are you "Qualified"?

After I posted my last blog I started thinking about my views on training and education and felt like I needed to flesh that out a little more and clarify it for myself as well as for others. I want to reiterate that I have nothing against “formal” training and education but feel like, for me personally, God’s training and education looks a bit different and goes beyond just that. While I know that God specifically calls people to go through formal training, everyone’s journey is different and God’s directions and training will be different for each one of us, but I think there is one thing that we ALL need to remember no matter what our “education” looks like… But before I go there, let me first say this...

Oswald Chambers’ devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, if you haven’t figured this out by now, is one of my favorite devotions! Oswald was a teacher and set his heart on training others to be missionaries. But, what I like the MOST about Oswald is his intense focus on the student’s relationship with GOD and not on “missionary training”.  He is always telling his students that God wants their absolute surrender, and a “right relationship with Him”, and nothing less!! He says “Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God”!!  One of my favorite “Oswaldisms” is when he says, “are you seeking the blessings of God, or are you seeking GOD who has the blessings?”!! This statement was a huge forehead slap for ME! I had not differentiated that before and once the Spirit pointed that out to me, I realized just how much I was seeking His blessings over my relationship with HIM! I still have to check myself on a regular basis to make sure I am still on track… it is SO easy to be distracted by cool spiritual “shiny things” and leave my pursuit of God in the dust of pursuit of His blessings!!

So, with that said, I think training and education is MOST effective, whether it is formal or not, when we are always seeking GOD to education us and not looking to man to train and educate us on how to serve God… Hopefully that makes sense. While God uses people for His purposes we need to keep our eyes on God for our knowledge, training, education and insight. Always seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness in every situation and trusting that God will take care of the rest… one day at a time. And for a little deeper clarification, I don’t think that it is our “formal” training and education that qualifies us, but God does. I read somewhere that “God doesn't choose the qualified, but qualifies the chosen…” I love that!  That is what we all need to remember! It is God who qualifies us as we seek HIM first, and pursue our relationship with Him, and trust Him with our own personalized training and education and not rely on the certificate hanging on our wall. I believe that our “formal” training from God is mostly in our “life” circumstances as He calls us to our specialized “classrooms”, which are the circumstances He allows in our lives. And yes, He may call you to a formal school training program, as one of YOUR specialized classrooms, on your journey to know Him.

So, in my musings on this topic I thought about the Biblical characters that were trained by God in their own unique and specialized “training” courses. Abraham’s training was in obedience, trust, faith and patience!! God told him he would have children as numerous as the sand on the sea shore and the stars in the sky but, he and Sarah were getting older and older and they still didn’t have any children… does he have faith that this will happen and believe in God for this promise or does he eventually think he just ate a bad squirrel and imagined it all? He did get to see the miracle of Isaac’s birth but We get to see the end of that story… Abraham just had to have faith that what God said would come to pass.

Joseph’s education in humility was pretty intense. He endured mistreatment from his brothers, slavery, and mistreatment from his master’s wife, imprisonment and neglect!! All these circumstances, or “class courses”, were specially designed by God to shape, mold and train Joseph to be the kind of leader God needed him to be in the end!!

Moses realized when he was a young man that God would use him to deliver His people from slavery, but God sent him out into the wilderness to herd sheep for 40 years as his training ground!! That makes me smile when I visualize him with the sheep, knowing he would be doing that very same thing with the Israelites in the desert for another 40 years! Moses was trained by God in that way so that he would be ready for God’s purposes when the time came.

For some New Testament examples, in Acts 4:13 it says “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” The disciples training ground was also a huge lesson in faith and believing that Jesus WAS the Son of God, even though Jesus didn’t do what they thought their Messiah would do! I am sure they had many doubtful moments but they hung in there and believed despite the confusing behavior of Jesus.

And in regards to Jesus, in Hebrews 5:8 it says “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered”. It is a hard thing for us to imagine, but suffering is used by God in many ways for many reasons. It stands to reason that if God's Son suffered, than we will too... and suffering is not a bad thing when it is ordained by God, especially when we are able to see God even better having gone through it! Also, in Matthew 10:19-20 Jesus said “But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” Sometimes I “think” I know what to say in situations but I feel much better knowing that the Spirit of God is speaking instead of me!

And for me personally; initially my training and education was in my difficult childhood and struggles in my marriage for 21+ years. I was being refined and humbled by this process so that God could shape and mold me into the person He needs me to be for His Kingdom purposes… And, He is still at it!  My training is certainly not over but continues with each life circumstance He places before me. Of course in ALL our journeys there will be books we read, Bible studies we go through, sermons we hear and people who speak into our lives that will also serve to “educate us” but they are as God directs and not always a part of a standard training course.

The cool thing about God is that He is a BIG God and can do ANYTHING in ANY WAY He wants to! He is not limited by what we think He can do but can go above and beyond in so many ways! As an example, a women shared with me that God spoke to her through the words on her laundry detergent box!! Yep!! Her detergent box!! God had been preparing her for an important “word” and He used a detergent box to communicate this message to her.  This may be a strange way to speak to someone but the women was transformed that day by the words God spoke to her on that box of soap!! I LOVE God’s creativity :)

What is God’s special training ground for you?? Can you see His refining and educational purposes in your life’s circumstances?

Father, help me to always look to YOU and pursue my relationship with you, and nothing else, and allow you to orchestrate the circumstantial class rooms in my life! Please keep me focused on You and not on Your blessings or the things you can DO for me. Help me not to resent or miss the tools you use to shape, train, educate and mold me but instead I choose to embrace them knowing You placed them there for Your amazing purposes!! I want YOU Lord, and I will trust you with the rest.  With much love, Linda :)