5 Minutes with Jesus is a daily devotional series for people in the midst of real life, whether facing anxiety, grief, questions of purpose, or simply needing encouragement and connection. Hosted by Sheila Walsh, each five-minute episode offers Biblical truth, honest reflections on faith and emotions, and closes with a moment of prayer.
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| Sheila Walsh - God Uses the Unqualified | May 8, 2026
- I believe god, like the shepherd,
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- Would have us live, trusting him at every turn.
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- Not in what you and i think we're capable of.
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- God loves to use the least likely among us.
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- I love reading stories about the least likely people
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- Being found by jesus and radically changed.
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- You know,
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- We tend to look at what
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- We can see
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- With our eyes or here
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- With our ears, but god looks right into the heart
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- And he can reach the most unlikely among us.
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- You might have been praying for some for years,
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- And honestly, you're just close to giving up on them.
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- But god hasn't given up.
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- Or perhaps when you look at your own life,
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- You don't feel as if god could ever use you.
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- I get that.
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- I became a different person after my father's death
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- By suicide.
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- I had been a carefree tomboy
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- Who wasn't afraid of anything, but i became someone
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- Who was afraid of everything and everyone.
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- I walked in my sleep for years.
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- I wanted to stay close to home.
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- You know, i couldn't travel for more than 4 or 5
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- Miles in a car without throwing up.
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- My mom told me in later years that she would pray this
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- For me, to pray for the least likely to succeed
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- That god would do like only he can do.
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- God loves to do that.
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- Think of the people god chose to use.
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- When god called moses, he was horrified.
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- How could he?
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- A man with a stutter
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- Faced pharaoh,
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- The king of egypt, and demand that he let god's people go?
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- He wasn't qualified.
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- Honestly, i think that was the whole point.
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- God doesn't look at the same things that you and i do.
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- He knows our limitations, our inability.
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- But he knows what
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- He can do with a life that's fully surrendered to him.
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- Or think about king david.
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- He was the least likely of the sons of jesse to be anointed
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- By the prophet samuel.
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- Which is why his dad didn't even bother to call him in
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- From the fields.
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- Samuel had to ask, is this all your son's?
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- See, his brothers were warriors.
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- He was a shepherd.
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- When david came in
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- From the fields, god said, this is the one i've chosen.
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- Samuel anointed him.
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- God called the youngest and the least likely.
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- Or think about gideon.
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- You can read his whole story in the book of judges chapter 628.
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- When the angel of the lord first approached him,
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- Called him a mighty man of god.
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- It must have sounded like a joke.
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- Gideon was hiding in a hole
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- Because he was afraid of israel's enemies.
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- But god said, i choose you.
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- I think about those who
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- Disqualified themselves by their own behavior.
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- When zacchaeus climbed up a tree to get a better
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- Look at jesus passing by, no one in the crowd,
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- Including zacchaeus, expected christ to stop and talk to him.
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- In fact,
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- When jesus invited himself to zacchaeus house,
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- The people were furious.
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- He was the chief tax collector for the roman government
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- In jericho, and he was despised by his own people.
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- He was seen as a traitor.
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- One encounter with jesus changed him for good.
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- I love what
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- Jesus said
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- To those who criticized him for eating with stickiest.
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- In luke 19, verse ten.
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- Jesus said,
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- The son of man came to seek and save those who are lost.
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- That word lost is the greek word
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- Apology, which means destroyed.
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- Broken beyond repair.
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- We look at our own brokenness.
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- Christ looks at what he can do with a broken life.
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- When he's given all the pieces.
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- When i was 18, my favorite book was hinds
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- Feet on high places by a woman called hannah cunard.
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- It tells the story of a young girl named much afraid,
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- Who chooses to leave the valley of fear,
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- Where she's lived for years,
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- And follow the shepherd up into the mountain.
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- Time after time,
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- She wants to stop
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- And go back to the valley because the road ahead
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- Looks all wrong.
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- Whether or not she continues her ascent up the mountain
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- Depends on whether or not she'll trust the shepherd.
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- Suddenly i saw
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- Myself and that young girl's story, full of fear,
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- Lacking and trust, subject to everyone blowing around her.
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- As i read, i took particular note of one thing
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- At every key point in the story when much afraid chose
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- To trust the shepherd to take one more step, the shepherd
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- Gave her stone to keep at the end of her long journey.
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- When she finally died to herself
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- And was given new legs to run with, she was taken by two
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- Traveling companions, suffering and sorrow,
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- Chosen by the shepherd to the top of the mountain,
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- And there she saw each rough, colorless stone
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- Had become a beautiful jewel for her tribe.
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- I believe god, like the shepherd,
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- Would have us live, trusting him at every turn.
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- Not in what you and i think we're capable of.
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- God loves to use the least likely among us.
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- Let's pray.
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- Lord, i know that to be true.
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- You know, lord, how unqualified i feel to do
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- The things you've called me to do.
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- But i thank you that you don't just look at ability.
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- You just want our obedience.
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- You want a heart that will simply say, yes,
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- I pray right now, lord, for anyone
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- Who feels you're calling them into something
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- That they think i can't do that
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- Lord, would you give
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- By your holy spirit the grace to make that first
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- Yes, to take that first step, and to trust
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- That you will lead us all the way in jesus name.
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- Amen.
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