Do You Feel Like the Wrong Person for the Job?

I was pushing my shopping cart back to the cart corral at Aldi when I noticed another customer approaching the store. A larger man with a bushy white beard, he was wearing a mask, overalls, a long-sleeved knit shirt and no coat (a detail that caught my eye because it was a blustery March morning).

I put my cart away and turned back around just as he was shuffling up to the door. He didn’t look familiar to me, but I thought I saw recognition in his eyes when he glanced my way.

This isn’t an uncommon occurrence. After spending the first 12 years of married life in a different state, I now live near where I grew up and occasionally run into people I knew long ago who recognize me (or the family I came from) before I realize who they are.

“Fancy meeting you here,” the man said. (I think that’s what he said, anyway. The wind, the mask and my less-than-stellar hearing made it a little difficult to tell exactly.)

After getting a closer look at me, he immediately followed up with, “Oh sorry—you’re the wrong person.”

I just laughed and called “It’s hard to tell with these masks” over my shoulder as I headed back to my car. It was a slightly odd exchange, but I knew what the man meant. He thought I was someone else, and he was mistaken.

Still, it got me to thinking.

Even when it’s a case of mistaken identity, it’s a bit jarring to be told you’re the wrong person. I wonder, though—have you ever thought this to yourself, about yourself?

Perhaps that you might be the wrong person to do something you have no choice but to do? That while you desperately long to do your job well, you suspect someone else could do it much better?

I remember feeling this way when my daughter Lilly was much younger. She was a constant blur of words and motion. I was in my mid-30s—perimenopausal with zero energy. I knew in my heart that God had given me my specific children, but if I had been a P.E. teacher, I may have been able to handle this phase of my life a bit better.

Years later, when my parents’ health declined and I had to fulfill all the executor and power-of-attorney responsibilities in their wills that I happily agreed to but never expected to actually perform, I thought the same thing. Out of all my high-achieving, take-charge siblings, I felt like I was the least likely to be in charge.

Yet in both cases—no matter how I felt at any given time—I wasn’t the wrong person. And neither are you.

We might be the wrong person for certain tasks or jobs. I don’t know about you, but I certainly would be the wrong person to sing on the praise team at church, to unload a truckload of heavy furniture, or to solve a complex calculus problem.

When it comes to who we are as individual children of God, however, we’re not the wrong people. We don’t have the wrong personality, the wrong wiring or the wrong emotional makeup to do what our all-wise heavenly Father has given us to do.

I’m not saying we are perfectly equipped for every role, right when we start. We might need to take the initiative and make some changes when it comes to our attitudes, our habits or how we respond to various situations.

There are plenty of times when we receive exactly what we need, just in time, and other times when we simply have to muddle through the best we can.

In any event, the Bible tells us that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

If you’re feeling like the wrong person today, I want you to remember this. You are not the wrong person.

And you never go wrong when you bring your insecurities, frailties and failures to Jesus and ask Him to strengthen you for your current task or season—whatever it may hold.

“The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me. Lord, your love is eternal; do not abandon the work of Your hands.” (Psalm 138:8)

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Inspire Me Monday, #HeartEncouragement and Grace & Truth.