Unlikely

It was my senior year of high school. The grass had turned a little greener, birds were chirping louder, and department stores had begun to line their racks with beautiful, sparkly, shiny formal gowns.

Spring meant just one thing to a senior girl: prom.

I made my way to school that morning, late, as usual, and ran across the parking lot to make it in time to my homeroom class. I took my seat and began to work on the previous night's history assignment.

The bell dinged and the ever-redundant morning announcements began to blast over the loud speaker. I didn't pay much attention until I heard the words, "And today in every homeroom class you will need to nominate this year's prom king and queen."

Suddenly my stomach was in complete knots.

I knew never to get my hopes up for such a thing. After all, I was the athletic girl who was at church every time the doors were open, not the socialite this honor required. While I knew not to expect it, something inside of me still desired to have it.

I couldn't shake the dreadful feeling within my body as sheets of paper were passed around the room on which to write down our nominations.

Would anyone write my name on those pieces of paper?

So, our very awkward and insensitive teacher took his place, front and center of the classroom. As he collected the papers, he began to call out the names written on them. I felt like I was at the end of a very intense Survivor episode.

Thirty seconds before the bell rang; our homeroom had nominated that year's prom king and queen…

Quickly I made my way to the one and only place a girl can get any ounce of privacy in a large high school -- a bathroom stall. I shut the gray rusted door and pulled off my sweatshirt and wept and wept.

It wasn't me ... again. No one picked me. I was forever an unlikely prom queen candidate.

That moment was so defining but I started to become something else -- an unlikely prom queen of a different kind. It has to do embracing my feelings of feeling unlikely according the world’s standards.

Throughout the Bible, there are great heroes of faith that were indeed themselves unlikely candidates.

-Moses couldn't talk right.

-David was an adulteress.

-The Samaritan woman was nothing more than a sinner girl.

-Jesus' very own disciples appeared to be scrubs in their community.

Yet God seemed to have hand picked and set apart these unlikely people. He used each of them for a redemptive purpose, despite their inadequacies. I’m finding this is exactly what God wants to do through my own flawed life.

Is there something that lies in your past that you feel is too far a stretch for God to use?

Do you possess a quality that the world would look at and say, "Nope, not you?"

Have you ever felt completely unqualified to be used by the hand of God?

If so, then you should get ready: because God qualifies the unqualified and he deems the unlikely, likely. Never think your inadequacies are too much for Him.

He’s called you, He’s chosen you and He’s handpicked you. What seems impossible to man is more than possible for our God. {Luke 18:27}

So go … do great things for God. You ARE qualified. Be unlikely to this world for the most likely God.