Quotient Quizes #8   People can make mistakes when announcing winners in relation to other people.   It recently happened on a global stage at the Oscars.  Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were the presenters for Best Picture.  There was a huge mix up when Beatty was given the wrong envelope.  Beatty and Dunaway misreported that “La La Land” had won the Oscar for Best Picture. 

Immediately the judges started scrambling.  “La La Land” producers were already making their acceptance speeches when they were interrupted by accountants from Price Waterhouse Coopers.  They quickly took the microphone and said a mistake had been made, and that “Moonlight” was the Best Picture winner.  A colossal mistake!  Humans make mistakes naming winners.

A similar thing happened on a global stage when comedian Steve Harvey was the MC for the Miss Universe Pageant last year.  When it came time to announce the winner, he was given the wrong card.  He crowned Miss Colombia as the winner, when it should have been Miss Philippines.

I love the reaction of Terrell Owens, the great professional football player from Alex City, Alabama when he was not selected for the National Football Hall of Fame this year.  He said he is going to look into the issue to see if maybe the winners going into the Hall of Fame were mistakenly announced and his name should have been there!

God doesn’t make mistakes!  He picks winners in life.  A lot of time people may try to tell us that we are in-competent, little, unimportant, failures, misfits, etc.  God never says that.  He created each of us just as we are.  We are precious in His sight.  We are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and “His works are wonderful” (Ps. 139:14).

Where do we find our true self-identity?  The world tells us to find our self-esteem and identity in life through trying to accomplish great things or by accumulating wealth.  That is not the truth.  If you need a fancy car or expensive clothes to make a statement about yourself, you don’t have much to say!  (Tweet this)

Sometimes we try to find our identity in comparing ourselves to other people.  God did not make any of us like anybody else.  He created each of us uniquely different.  I like Tim Teebow’s statement – “We never become who God created us to be by trying to be like somebody else.”  Judy Garland said, “Always be a first-rate version of yourself  instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” 

Our true identity comes in knowing that God loved us, that He sent His Son into the world to redeem us, and He designed a perfect plan of purpose for each of us.  He announces us as winners!  We find our identity in Him.  Read Jeremiah 29:11-13.

I heard once about a boy who took an eagle’s egg and put it into the nest of a prairie chicken.  The eaglet hatched with the rest of the chicks and grew up with them.  The baby eagle thought he was a prairie chicken and did what the prairie chickens did.  He clucked and cackled with a brief flurry of his feathers to get a few feet off the ground, because that was what the chickens were doing.

Years later, the eagle was growing old.  He saw a magnificent bird soaring in the sky.  He said, “What a beautiful bird.  What is it?”  Someone chuckled, “That’s an eagle, the chief of all birds.  But don’t give it a second thought, you could never be like him.”  The sad thing is the eagle gave up the thought of being what he was created to be and died thinking he was a prairie chicken.

The Oscars and beauty pageants don’t pick the right winners.  God does.  He picks you.  Get out of the chicken pen and start flying!

What is your WQ – Winner Quotient?