What to Do When You've Been Overlooked

Being overlooked stings most when the people passing you over already know your work. Discover what God was doing while David stood forgotten in a field, and how to stay faithful in the work in front of you.Some people spend years being the one who doesn't get picked. You watched a colleague take the promotion you were more qualified for. You watched a friend get invited to something nobody thought to include you in. The sting cuts deepest when the people passing you over already know your work.Christine Darden knew that sting. She came to NASA in 1967 with a master's degree in applied mathematics, hired as one of the "human computers" who ran the calculations the engineers needed. Men who walked in with the same degree went straight into engineering, where they ran their own projects and moved up. Darden stayed at her desk running their numbers, watching people who started after her climb past her. She could have decided that's just how it worked. Instead she walked into a director's office and asked him to his face why men and women with the same credentials were being sent down different roads.David knew that sting, too, and the man who overlooked him was his own father. When the prophet Samuel came to Bethlehem to anoint the next king of Israel, Jesse brought out his sons one at a time. God said no to every one of them. Then, in 1 Samuel 16:11, Samuel had to ask a question that never should have needed asking: are these all the sons you have? There was still the youngest, out in the fields watching the sheep.Jesse didn't forget David. He ranked him. He decided which of his sons belonged in front of a prophet and left one out with the animals. But God was never working off Jesse's list. He knew the address of that field, and the meal in Bethlehem stopped until the boy nobody sent for arrived.There's something else in that field. David was out there doing work nobody claps for, and out there he got good with a sling and fought off a lion and a bear. Everything he learned while he was being ignored is what he used the day Goliath showed up. The overlooked years were training.This episode looks at what to do while you're waiting to be seen: how to keep doing good work when no one is writing your name down, when to ask the question the way Christine Darden asked it, and how to leave the answer with the God who already knows exactly where you are.BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:Why being passed over by the people who know you best stings more than being passed over by strangersWhat 1 Samuel 16:11 reveals about the way God chooses, and why He never picks from the lineup men hand HimHow to stay faithful in unglamorous work, and how to speak up without taking the outcome into your own handsGod does not choose from the list men hand Him. He knew where David was the whole time, and He knows the address of the field you're standing in today.Share This Episode:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/282Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemailWant to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast.https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/Rate and Reviewhttps://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/Connect with BartFacebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylivesWebsite: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.comFeeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe.