This is part of my year-long series exploring human-centered alternatives to the spiritual promises in Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. Today’s entry, “The Brave Comradeship of God,” promises that God chooses people precisely because “there’s nothing of value” in them, claiming that those who are brought “to the end of their self-sufficiency” become God’s “comrades” who are “taken up into the compelling purpose of God,” with the main thing about Christianity being “the relationship we maintain” with God rather than useful work or natural abilities.
Here’s what trusting that God chooses the self-insufficient for brave comradeship and divine purpose actually delivered:
“God has been brave in trusting you,” Pastor Chen declared with spiritual conviction. “He chose you precisely because there’s nothing of value in you. As long as you think you have something to offer, God can’t choose you. Only those brought to the end of self-sufficiency become His comrades, taken up into His compelling purpose. The main thing isn’t the work you do but the relationship you maintain with Him.”
Lauren had been struggling with chronic unemployment and depression, feeling worthless and without direction after multiple job rejections. The promise that God chose her specifically because of her poverty and lack of value, making her His comrade through self-insufficiency, seemed like the spiritual meaning she needed to find purpose in her struggles.
Lauren desperately wanted to believe that her lack of abilities and self-sufficiency made her specially chosen for divine comradeship and purpose. Instead of developing marketable skills, seeking career counseling, addressing her depression through therapy, or building practical competencies that employers value, she embraced her poverty and insufficiency as evidence of divine selection, trusting that maintaining her relationship with God was more important than developing useful capabilities.
For months, Lauren avoided practical steps toward employment or skill development, believing that thinking she had something valuable to offer would disqualify her from God’s choosing and that self-sufficiency would interfere with divine comradeship. When concerned friends suggested job training programs, resume building workshops, or even basic computer skills classes, she declined, convinced that developing human abilities would prevent God from taking her up into His compelling purpose through her poverty and insufficiency.
But the promised divine comradeship through self-insufficiency was deeper isolation disguised as spiritual selection.
Lauren’s attempts to maintain divine relationship through embracing her poverty created additional hopelessness on top of unemployment and depression. The brave comradeship that God was supposed to provide through choosing the insufficient remained absent while her practical situation worsened and her employability decreased further. The compelling purpose that divine selection was supposed to bring never materialized when she needed actual direction and capability development most.
Meanwhile, Lauren’s neighbor Jessica approached her own unemployment and depression with immediate practical intervention and skill building. When Jessica faced similar job market challenges, she sought career counseling, enrolled in skills training programs, addressed her mental health through therapy, and focused entirely on evidence-based approaches to building marketable capabilities and professional competencies.
Jessica didn’t wait for divine comradeship through poverty but treated unemployment as requiring practical skill development and mental health support. Her direction came through career assessment, professional training, and gradually building employable abilities through sustained practical work rather than trusting that divine selection through self-insufficiency would provide purpose and comradeship.
When Lauren finally sought similar help, she discovered that healthy career development required building actual skills and addressing depression rather than trusting that God chose her for comradeship because of her poverty and lack of value.
Where was the brave comradeship that God was supposed to provide through choosing the self-insufficient? Where was the compelling purpose that divine selection through poverty was supposed to bring to her life?
The direction that actually helped came through accepting the necessity of skill development and focusing on evidence-based career and mental health support, not through believing that divine comradeship would emerge through embracing self-insufficiency and maintaining spiritual relationship above practical capability building. The silence where God’s brave trust was supposed to be working revealed the truth: there was no divine comradeship available through poverty or spiritual selection that replaced the need for practical skills and mental health treatment.
Only employment markets and depression that required professional understanding and skill development to navigate successfully toward meaningful work and mental wellness.
Reflection Question: When has building practical skills and addressing mental health been more effective than trusting that God chooses you for comradeship because of your self-insufficiency?
This story is part of my upcoming book “The Undevoted: Daily Departures from Divine Dependence,” which offers 365 human-centered alternatives to the spiritual certainties in Chambers’ devotional. Each day explores how reason, community, and human resilience can address life’s challenges without requiring divine intervention.
God or Delusion? 