Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Steven Furtick, (2016-03-01) from his book, (UN)Qualified: How God Uses Broken People to Do Big Things (pp. 18-19). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That really makes sense to me.   Steven says, “That’s why it hurts so much when we fail, when we fall short. Our shortcomings seem to prove that we are fundamentally flawed, and that makes us question our value and our identity.” But he goes on, “God doesn’t see things the way we do. His scales, his standards, and his measuring devices aren’t calibrated the way ours are. But until we understand his way of thinking, we will look at our failures and successes as the sole indicators of our value. Inevitably that leads to exaggerated, constantly shifting conclusions about whether we are qualified or not. An identity that is informed by feelings of inadequacy is a dangerous thing.” I read a Psalm every day.   It is one plac...

A thought by Steven Furtick, (2016-03-01) from his book, (UN)Qualified: How God Uses Broken People to Do Big Things (p. 6). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) I know, I know there are other things we qualify people on such as looks and status but basically we use character and competency as guidelines. Steven says, “Character refers to who we are. Not just our names or nationalities, but our personalities, our morals, our values, our emotional makeup, our likes and dislikes, our tastes, our manners— the list goes on. Competency refers to what we do. It’s the complex sum of our training, achievements, talents, activities, and potential. It’s about how good we are at what we do and about how much we accomplish.” He goes on, “Our competency is usually much more at the forefront than our character. What we do makes headlines. It fills the pages of our résumés. It is so intricately connected to ou...

A thought by Steven Furtick, (2016-03-01) from his book, (UN)Qualified: How God Uses Broken People to Do Big Things (p. 4). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title of the book to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) This is a new book by Steven Furtick that speaks about something that each of us have to deal with in ourselves.   So many of us hope that we are qualified to do what we have to deal with in life but we are also afraid that others will find out that we are unqualified.   We just don’t have what it takes to do big things with our life.     Steven says, “I think we all secretly fight feelings of inadequacy, insufficiency, and incompetence. We wonder whether we really measure up. We fear we are not ‘enough’— whatever that means in our particular situations.” But then he says, “I have good news. If you look at the great men and women of Scripture, you find one common denominator: they were all unqualified. God has a habit...