Word of the Week: Qualifications

It's funny how God chooses to get my attention. I would like to hit myself over the head sometimes; he instead is loving and gentle, meeting me right where I am. I love when he chooses to show up in my reading and learning and listening. That's the way it's been with this word, qualifications.

I'm sure I'm not alone in doubting my qualifications. I've struggled with this, my perceived lack of qualifications, over the years. The other night I was reading several selections from Glimpses of Grace, which is a collection of writings from various Madeleine L'Engle works, and this word kept leaping out at me.

"It is nothing we can do, in this do-it-yourself world. It is gift, sheer gift, waiting there to be recognized and received. We do not have to be qualified to be holy. We do not have to be qualified to be whole, or healed."

"In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but is seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own."

"To trust, to be truly whole, is also to let go whatever we may consider our qualifications." (All quotations from Walking on Water: Reflections on Art and Faith)

And this morning, reading in Colossians 1, verse 12 jumped out at me: and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his people in the kingdom of light.

Slowly but surely, God is enabling me to loosen my grip on this thing, and amazingly, replacing it with something too precious for words. Surely that's enough for me!