Key Bible Verse: God deliberately chose … those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful (1 Corinthians 1:27). Bonus Reading: 1 Cor. 1:26-31

Our success-centered enterprise system has little room for failure. It is ideal for the successful but devastating for the loser. In an effort to create winners, we also create misfits.

Though John was born in a $300,000 home, he was a penniless drifter. Though he's the son of a successful oil tycoon, John quit more things than he finished. Though his parents are gregarious and social, John is introverted, reclusive. John attended college on and off for seven years, but never graduated. His brother and sister made it, but he didn't.

We don't know what emotions stirred within John. Anger at a society that only reminded him of his inadequacies? Guilt? Painful reminders that "I let everybody down"? But we do know their result.

John Hinckley Jr. had every intention of killing President Reagan. For the love of a stranger and the lack of a name, he emptied a revolver into the bodies of four men. Placed in a federal prison, John tried to overdose on Tylenol—and failed.

Jesus had a place for misfits. In His book the last became first, and even the loser had value. It is our responsibility to be like Christ, to intercept a life like John Hinckley's and fill it with value.

—Max Lucado in Shaped by God

My Response: An odd-man-out to whom I should reach out is ____.

Adapted from Shaped by God (Tyndale, 1985) by permission.

Prayer for the Week

Lord, move me beyond the world's definition of failure and success to the only one that counts—Your definition.

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