We live in an era where those who are chosen for honor and accolades are the most skilled and gifted, the most talented and attractive, the most popular and charismatic, and the most attractive and appealing. But it’s true that mankind has tended toward such criteria for choosing leaders or those destined for some special position down through history.

The covers of our magazines choose the rich and the famous, the beautiful and successful. TV and movies choose men and women whose figures and hairlines are often flawless. Only the very best minds receive academic scholarships and only the athletes with the strongest and most consistent performance are drafted for college and professional teams.

With God it’s a different story…

He consistently chooses the unlikely one.  

Rebekah carries within her twin sons, Esau and Jacob, and at every turn Jacob connives and cheats Esau out of his birthright and father’s blessing. He deceives his father and yet it is Jacob who is chosen to be in the line from Abraham who shows up in the lineage of Christ.

The children of Jacob (now Israel) are enslaved in Egypt and God chooses Moses whom He spared in the bulrushes to lead His people to the Promised Land. Yet Moses has a hard time speaking and needs to ask his brother Aaron to do the talking for him.

When Joshua sends the spies into the Promised Land to scout out the city of Jericho, the spies are at risk to be caught and killed, but God chooses a prostitute, Rahab, to hide them. Her choice results in her salvation when God gives Jericho into the hands of Joshua and puts her in a marriage that adds her name to the lineage of Christ.

When Israel wanted a king, Saul was chosen. He towered among many of the day and seemed a likely choice; but when He disobeyed God and chose his own way, the Lord rejected him. Whom did He choose next? He sent Samuel to the house of Jesse who was blessed with many sons who were skilled and experienced, but when He made His choice it was the youngest and least likely…David…who would be made king of Israel.

When Jesus came to earth and was starting His ministry, He called ordinary fishermen to be his disciples rather than the religious leaders of the day. He even chose a tax collector.

God honored a small man named Zacchaeus to have dinner at his house even though he was hiding up in a tree.

In the midst of preaching on a hillside to thousands of people, Jesus became concerned that people there were hungry and needed to be fed. He asked the disciples to get food. They had no food with them, but a small boy with a sack lunch provided the meal Jesus blessed and everyone was fed.

After Jesus ascended into heaven and His disciples were gathering together to follow His commission, Saul, a learned Pharisee did all he could to stop them. Then God stopped Saul on his way to persecute more new believers in Damascus and changed his life and name forever. Saul (now Paul) became the great missionary to spread the gospel to the Gentiles.

And it didn’t stop there.

From the beginning until now, God has chosen the least likely, the ordinary, the broken and the flawed, the misunderstood and maligned.

No matter who you are or what your status, no matter how you have failed Him, His love pursues you and if His love pursues you, He has chosen you.

You may well wonder at that. I certainly do, but it is Paul whom no one expected to become a believer that points to God’s reason in 2 Corinthians 4:7:

“We are like common clay jars that carry this glorious treasure within, so that the extraordinary overflow of power will be seen as God’s, not ours.”

2 Cor. 4:7 (TPT)