"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are."
Devotion
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"God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise"
The Deliberate Choice · eklégomai · G1586 · GREEK
To select, to pick out, to elect with intentionality — active and purposeful; God does not accidentally end up with the unqualified, he chooses them on purpose.
Paul's use of eklégomai is the language of deliberate selection. God did not settle for the foolish because the wise were unavailable. He chose the foolish specifically — because the foolish make his power undeniable. Your sense of inadequacy is not a disqualification; it may be exactly the quality God is looking for — the person who cannot pull this off alone and knows it.
📖 Judges 6:11–16 · Mighty Man of Valor, Hiding in FearWhen the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress — hiding from the Midianites. The angel's opening line was remarkable: "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."
Gideon's response was essentially: "Have you seen what's happening to us? If God is with us, why are we in this mess? And by the way, I'm the least in my family, which is the weakest in my tribe."
The angel did not correct his self-assessment. He redirected it: "Go in the strength you have... Am I not sending you?" God's call did not depend on Gideon's ability. It depended on God's commission.
The least of the least became the deliverer — not because Gideon found his confidence, but because God showed up in his weakness with something Gideon couldn't manufacture: a commission.
"God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong"
The Strength Beneath Weakness · asthenés · G772 · GREEK
Without strength, feeble, lacking in power — the quality God deliberately chooses because it makes his power undeniably the source of any outcome.
The word asthenés described the physically weak, the socially powerless, the sick — those who obviously could not pull something off through their own resources. Paul's claim is that God deliberately chooses this quality. When you accomplish something you clearly couldn't have done alone, it becomes impossible to attribute the outcome to your qualifications — and that is exactly where God gets undeniable glory.
📖 1 Samuel 17:45–50 · The Boy With Five Smooth StonesGoliath looked at David and was insulted. "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" He was armored, trained, experienced, and enormous. David was a shepherd boy who had never been in combat.
By every visible measure, David was unqualified. His brothers thought so. The king thought so. Goliath thought so. David himself never claimed otherwise.
What David claimed was something different entirely: "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty." The qualification was not David's — it was the name he carried.
The stone hit. The giant fell. The army that had cowered for forty days watched a boy do what a qualified army could not — because the boy knew who sent him.
"the things that are not — to nullify the things that are"
The Great Nullifier · katargéō · G2673 · GREEK
To render inoperative, to abolish, to make of no effect — God uses what has no standing by the world's measure to displace what the world counts as essential.
"The things that are not" — the people who don't register on the world's charts of significance, influence, or qualification. God uses precisely these to nullify the things that the world treats as immovable. If you feel like you are a "thing that is not," you are in the very category God loves to work through — because when you succeed in his calling, no one can attribute it to your qualifications.
📖 Exodus 3:10–12 · A Burning Bush and a Man With an ObjectionMoses had spent forty years in obscurity after a failed attempt to be someone important. He was eighty years old, tending sheep in the desert, when God spoke from a burning bush: "I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
Moses had one question: "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" It was the question of someone who had already been humbled by his own limitations — the exact opposite of the self-assured forty-year-old who had killed an Egyptian and thought that made him a deliverer.
God's answer was not a resumé. It was a presence: "I will be with you." The qualification was not Moses. It was the God who was sending him.
The thing that was not — an eighty-year-old shepherd with a speech impediment — nullified the most powerful empire on earth. Because God was with him.
Declarations
- ✦ God deliberately chose me — knowing my limitations — and his commission does not depend on my credentials. (1 Corinthians 1:27)
- ✦ My competence comes from God, not from myself — I can do what I've been called to do through him who gives me strength. (2 Corinthians 3:5)
- ✦ God's power is made perfect in my weakness — what I cannot do alone is exactly where his glory shines. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
- ✦ I was summoned by name, knowing everything I am and am not — and that call is secure in his mercy. (Isaiah 43:1)
Prayer
Father, I have been telling you all the reasons I am not the right person. But you already know what I lack, and you called me anyway. Help me stop rehearsing my inadequacies and start trusting your commission. Let my weakness be the exhibition hall for your power. I say yes to what you are asking, knowing it will only work because you are with me. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Think about it
What is the specific "I am not qualified because..." statement that keeps you from stepping into what God is asking — and what would it look like to bring that statement to God and let him respond?
I will stop waiting to feel qualified and start stepping forward in the calling God has given me, trusting that his power is made perfect in my weakness.
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