There’s No Such Thing as an Overqualified Christian

I was sitting cross-legged on the dining room floor changing my infant son’s diaper, crumbs and toys scattered everywhere, overwhelmed with the responsibilities of the care and keeping of a home and the 24/7–365 reality of being a stay-at-home parent with small children. I hadn’t left home for days. Nobody had asked my opinion or expertise, or said please/thank you of their own volition (except my wonderful and attentive husband).

As an energetic extrovert-performer who thrives when moving through life at 100 mph, all of the dishes, diapers, laundry, cooking, and cleaning seemed like a Sisyphean existence. (I am now four children in, and have been interrupted eight times while typing the above paragraph!)

I sat there, diaper wipe in hand, and said out loud to the Lord in raw frustration, “I am overqualified for this! I am capable of greater things than changing diapers.” Immediately I heard his Spirit say to me, “Well, I—the creator of the universe—washed feet. So you, my dear, can wipe butts.” (John 13:12-17)

It was not long after my encounter with Jesus on the dining room floor that day that I began reading Tish Harrison Warren’s beautiful little book, Liturgy of the Ordinary. In this book, Tish moves through the ordinary events of a typical day—waking, making the bed, losing our keys, eating leftovers, sitting in traffic, etc.—to reveal how we are formed by the liturgies that shape our daily lives and that every moment is a sacred act of worship.

From the opening pages, Tish’s words were like a balm to my soul. In chapter one, she quotes from Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy, reminding us that the place “transformation is actually carried out is in our real life, where we dwell with God and our neighbors…First, we must accept the circumstances we constantly find ourselves in as the place of God’s kingdom and blessing. God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.” 

Throughout the book, Tish demonstrated how every moment of our day matters to God; that even the things that feel small and insignificant are weighty with meaning and are a part of the abundant life that God has for us. She points out how Christ spent most of his earthly life in obscurity, and that those “ordinary” years are as much a part of our redemption story as his birth, death, and resurrection.

“If Christ was a carpenter, all of us who are in Christ find that our work is sanctified and made holy. If Christ spent time in obscurity, then there is infinite worth found in obscurity. …the only life any of us live is in daily, pedestrian humanity.” 

Liturgy of the Ordinary helped me see how the rhythms and habits of my every day life formed me as a worshiper and reframed how I saw my job as a stay-at-home parent: that every task—rendered as a service unto the Lord—was significant and meaningful; that serving others is the greatest work anyone can do in his kingdom; and that “God himself will milk the cows through him whose vocation it is” (Martin Luther). 

I don’t know where you find yourself today: crying on the dirty dining room floor, unseen and unappreciated, or at your neatly organized desk, uninterruptedly answering emails and getting all your boxes checked off—with LinkedIn posts to prove it. (You may be interested to know that these 672 words took me almost 2.5 hours to type (and I type at 85 words/min) because I was interrupted every ~43 seconds by four little humans who needed me. But it’s okay. That’s how I am serving God right now.)

Wherever you are, may I remind you of this: there is no such thing as an overqualified Christian. If God has called you to a specific place or task, then serve him faithfully in this season—even if (especially if) it’s in obscurity. After all, “God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.”