{"id":237,"date":"2017-04-11T06:10:28","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T06:10:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=237"},"modified":"2017-04-11T19:02:04","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T19:02:04","slug":"god-favors-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html","title":{"rendered":"God Favors the Forgotten"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash.com\"
unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Do you feel like life has somehow forgotten you? Do you ever look at the filtered highlight reels of everyone else on social media and wonder what you did to deserve such a mediocre life in comparison? In a world that rewards the extraordinary, does your life seem painfully ordinary? In a world that applauds only the best, does your world seem average at best?<\/p>\n

If you could honestly characterize your life as mediocre, take hope. If you have trouble carrying the baggage from your past and wonder how God could ever love you, take heart. If your hopes and dreams are dashed and you feel left behind and forgotten by this world, rejoice! Why? Because God favors the forgotten.<\/strong> Be reminded of these incredible truths from Scripture:<\/p>\n

Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world\u00a0to be rich in faith\u00a0and to inherit the kingdom\u00a0he promised those who love him? James 2:5<\/em><\/p>\n

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 1 Corinthians 1:26-27<\/em><\/p>\n

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3<\/em><\/p>\n

So, if you feel forgotten, despised or simply ignored, be reminded of these eternal truths from your Heavenly Father:
\nYour I.Q. doesn’t determine your influence.
\nYour wealth doesn’t determine your worth.
\nYour popularity doesn’t validate your purpose.
\nYour status doesn’t equal your success.
\nDesigner clothes do not give you your dignity. Your outward beauty does not determine your inward blessing. How you look isn’t how God looks at you, because God doesn’t value what this world values.\u00a0God favors the forgotten.<\/strong><\/p>\n

God isn’t interested in your currency so much as your character, your fame so much as your faithfulness. God doesn’t want your ability so much as your availability, your strength so much as your submission. God isn’t interested in making your name famous as much as making his name famous. God doesn\u2019t care how many cars you own, how many degrees hang on your walls, how many vacations you take or how many Instagram followers you have. God doesn\u2019t love you because you\u2019re good or smart, pretty or famous, wealthy or successful. God loves you because you\u2019re his, and when this truth settles on you, it will transform your destiny:\u00a0God favors the forgotten<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So what does this mean for you? How does this change the way you approach your average, everyday life?
\nGod wants to replace your daily mediocrity with a divine mission.
\nGod wants to remove your baggage and give you a boldness because God is bigger.
\nGod wants to fill the persecuted with his power.
\nGod wants to give the despised a new destiny.<\/p>\n

Why? Because God favors the forgotten,<\/strong> and that changes everything.\u00a0Take heart and rejoice, you who feel neglected and forgotten, for God’s favor rests on you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you feel like life has somehow forgotten you? Do you ever look at the filtered highlight reels of everyone else on social media and wonder what you did to deserve such a mediocre life in comparison? In a world that rewards the extraordinary, does your life seem painfully ordinary? In a world that applauds…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[31,122,121,27,34,123],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-next-steps","tag-bible","tag-favor","tag-forgotten","tag-god","tag-hope","tag-james"],"yoast_head":"\nGod Favors the Forgotten - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you're weighed down by your past, if you feel left behind and forgotten by this world, take heart! God favors the forgotten.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God Favors the Forgotten - Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you're weighed down by your past, if you feel left behind and forgotten by this world, take heart! God favors the forgotten.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-04-11T06:10:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-04-11T19:02:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2017\/04\/freestocks-org-157863-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Daffern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@joshdaffern\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"God Favors the Forgotten - Next Steps","description":"If you're weighed down by your past, if you feel left behind and forgotten by this world, take heart! God favors the forgotten.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"God Favors the Forgotten - Next Steps","og_description":"If you're weighed down by your past, if you feel left behind and forgotten by this world, take heart! God favors the forgotten.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html","og_site_name":"Next Steps","article_author":"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","article_published_time":"2017-04-11T06:10:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-04-11T19:02:04+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2017\/04\/freestocks-org-157863-300x200.jpg"}],"author":"Josh Daffern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@joshdaffern","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html","name":"God Favors the Forgotten - Next Steps","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2017\/04\/freestocks-org-157863-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2017-04-11T06:10:28+00:00","dateModified":"2017-04-11T19:02:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c"},"description":"If you're weighed down by your past, if you feel left behind and forgotten by this world, take heart! God favors the forgotten.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2017\/04\/freestocks-org-157863-300x200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2017\/04\/freestocks-org-157863-300x200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2017\/04\/god-favors-forgotten.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"God Favors the Forgotten"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/","name":"Next Steps","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Josh Daffern","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c","name":"Josh Daffern","description":"Born and raised in California, Josh graduated college from California Baptist University and spent two years as a missionary in Africa before coming back to America and finding the love of his life (Robin). Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. Enjoy the blog!","sameAs":["http:\/\/joshdaffern.com","facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","https:\/\/x.com\/joshdaffern"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/author\/jdaffern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":242,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}