What to Do When You've Been Overlooked

Christine Darden could do the math to fly a plane

right up to the edge of the sound barrier. What she couldn't

do, apparently, was get the job that math should have earned her.

She came to NASA back in 1967, back when they still called the

people who ran the calculations human computers. Darden was one

of them. She had a master's degree in applied mathematics,

and she spent her days working out the numbers the engineers

needed, engineers who were, every one of them, men. Here's

what she noticed as the years went by. The men who walked in

with the same degree she had got hired straight into engineering,

where they ran their own projects and moved up. Darden

sat at her desk running the numbers, watching people who had

started after her, climb up and past her while she stayed

exactly where she was. She could've told herself, "That's

just how it was." Plenty of people would have. Instead,

Darden decided to ask a question, not to her direct supervisor,

who had already brushed her off, but to a director several levels

above her--a man who had no particular reason to care what a

computer in the pool thought. She knew how it would go--a

question like that could get her labeled the troublemaker. It

could end whatever future she had left in the agency, but

she'd made up her mind. She walked to the director's office,

knocked, and asked him, to his face, why the men and the women

who came in with the very same degrees, "We're being sent down

completely different roads." We'll come back to what he told

her, but

first, welcome to daily devotions for busy lives. I'm

Bart Leger. I learned what it feels like to be passed over on

the playground. Grade school recess, PE class, two captains

picking teams. All the bigger boys went first every single

time. I'd stand there while the group around me got smaller,

waiting to hear my name, knowing it would come near the end if it

came at all. It was demoralizing. I remember that feeling better

than I remember most things from those years. You'd never fully

outgrow it. the captains turn into supervisors and committees

and the people who decide who gets the opportunity. The sting

cuts deepest when the ones passing you over are the ones

who know you. They've seen your work and they still didn't say

your name. That's the position. That's the position David was in.

And the man who skipped him was his own father. Samuel came to

Bethlehem to anoint the next king of Israel. God had told him

the king would be one of Jesse's sons. So Jesse brought his boys

out to meet the prophet one at a time. Eliab, the oldest, looked

the part and Samuel was ready to pour the oil right there. God

said no. Six more sons came through. God kept saying no.

Then, Samuel asked a question that never should have needed

asking. Listen to 1 Samuel 16: 11. Then Samuel asked, "Are

these all the sons you have?" "There is still the youngest,"

Jesse replied, "Send for him at once," Samuel said. "We will not

sit down to eat until he arrives." Look at what Jesse did.

He 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. He knew where David was. He just didn't think it

mattered. A stranger who passes you over doesn't know any better.

Your father does. The supervisor who has watched you show up

early for three years does. the way it does. Now watch what God

does with it. He let Jesse line up all seven sons, and then he

moved to the prophet to ask about the one nobody bothered to

send for. "And the meal stops." "We will not sit down to eat

until he arrives." "All of Bethlehem waits on the boy who

wasn't invited." "God does not choose from the lineup. Men hand

him." Here's the part I don't want you to miss. When Samuel

showed up, David was out doing his job, watching sheep, the

kind of work nobody claps for. Out in that field with no

audience, he got good with the sling, and he fought off a lion

and a bear. He tells Saul about it a chapter later when he makes

his case to fight Goliath. The field was a training ground.

What David learned while he was being ignored is what he used

when the giant showed up. You may be in a field like that

today. The work is unglamorous and nobody is writing your name

down. God is paying closer attention to what you're

becoming out than to what anybody else thinks of you back

at the house. Christine's question brings up one more

thing. Trusting God to place you leaves plenty of room for you to

speak. She walked into a director's office and asked a

plain question about something that was plainly unfair. She

asked it respectfully. You can name what you see and still

leave the answer in God's hands. Now let's get back to Christine.

The director looked at her and he said, "Nobody has ever asked

me that question before." Christine said, "Well, I'm

asking it now." Christine was in a position. Within a couple of

weeks, she was promoted and transferred into engineering.

Her first assignment was to write a program on the sonic

boom. And that one assignment turned into a career. Christine

Darden became one of the world's leading experts on supersonic

flight. She earned a doctorate and published more than 50

papers. Years later, she became the first black woman promoted

to the highest rank at NASA Langley. The woman they'd left

running numbers in the back had been the right person all along.

She would later say that her faith was what convinced her God

could help her do the thing that looked impossible. And that she

just had to be willing to ask. Nobody at NASA saw it. God saw

it the whole time. Here's today's challenge. Name the

place where you've been passed over and take it to God by name

today. Say the job. Say the invitation that never came. Ask

Him to keep you faithful in the field you're standing in and to

show you whether there's a question you need to ask. Then,

go do today's work like the king is watching. Because he is.

Father, you see the people who never get picked. You know the

names that get left off the list. You knew where David was while

his brothers were being lined up. And you know where each of us is

right now. Give us grace to do good work when no one is

watching. Where we've grown resentful about being skipped.

Forgive us and heal it. Teach us to trust your choosing over

anyone else's. In Jesus' name. Amen. That's right. This podcast

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dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support . Thank you so much. And thanks

for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.

Remember, God knows the address of the field you're standing in.

And He doesn't choose from the list men hand Him. Come back

next time for more encouragement to help you live grounded in

God's truth. Until then, God bless and have a great day.