Through The Bible in a Year - March 19, 2026

“I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people, Israel.” – 2 Samuel 7:8

David was the least likely king. He was the youngest son in a culture that honored firstborns. He was small, sunburned, and “stinking of sheep,” when Samuel came to anoint the next king. His father, Jesse, didn’t even bother calling David in from the fields.

Seven brothers paraded before Samuel—tall, handsome, qualified. God said no to all of them. Why? The Bible answers, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

This is God’s consistent pattern: He takes “the weak things of the world to shame the strong, the things that are not to make nothing the things that are.” He specializes in using the unqualified, the overlooked, the inadequate.

Consider a young man in our church with Down syndrome. His practice was to ask everyone who met him in church: “Do you love Jesus? Do you know Jesus is coming back?” Perhaps, that sounds foolish or even a nuisance. But, when a young child in our church died from a brain tumor, this young man ministered profound gospel truth to a grieving friend, saying, “Johnny loved Jesus and now Johnny can walk and he can talk and he can see and he’ll come back with Jesus.”

Sometimes “the least of these” get the gospel better than the experts. God uses hearts fully devoted to Him, regardless of worldly qualifications.

Respond: Where do you feel unqualified or overlooked? In what area do you think, “I can’t be Used by God”? How might God want to use the very weaknesses you despise to display His strength? And, who in your life might you be overlooking that God values deeply and can use to show his glory?

Prayer: Father, thank You that You don’t measure value the way the world does. You took a shepherd boy and made him king. Help me see myself and others through Your eyes.

Use my weaknesses to display Your strength. I don’t need to be qualified—I just need to be committed to your purposes for you to use me for your glory. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.