Chosen—too marvelous for words.

I asked you the other day whether or not you believe that you are chosen by God.  God chose you and me to love him and enjoy his love forever.

I hope that the word “chosen” speaks to you.  As children of God, we are God’s chosen ones.  Chosen means you are wanted, your company is sought after—I like that.  When I know that I am chosen, I know that I have been seen as a special person.  Someone has noticed me in my uniqueness and has expressed a desire to know me, to come closer to me, to love me.  You and me have been seen by God from all eternity and seen as unique, special, precious beings.  Hear me as I ask----can you pleeease open up your soul, can you open your mind, open the eyes of your heart that you might be able to take this into yourself—for it is too marvelous for words?? 

Peter said that followers of Christ are ‘a chosen generation’ . . . oh, I like that.  In our society, though, sometimes the term ‘chosen’ harkens back to a harder time in life when we remember not ever being chosen—like in recess playground games.  Hmmm…Janis Ian’s song runs through my mind—you know, about learning the truth of not being chosen-- “to those of us who know the pain of valentines that never came, and those of us whose names were never called when choosing sides for basketball…”  To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different.  Instead of excluding others, it includes others.  Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness.  It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice.

To associate ‘being chosen’ with competitiveness would be looking from the world’s point of view, right?  Instead, let us look at our Heavenly Father’s point of view: he chose you, he chose me.  Before the foundations of time, (as we think of time, not him--because he sees time all at once), it was his heart that we would be his.  God did not send his Son for a race of people, only men, or for 144,000 witnesses . . . no, Jesus came for all, because ALL ARE  CHOSEN.  But don’t think less of being chosen because he came for all . . .  he chose you individually.  Remember, he knit you together in your mother’s womb, he knows the number of hairs on your head, he knows the length of days of your earthly existence, and your name is written on the palm of his hand—that’s how specifically he thinks of you.

Yet, there are those who have been left behind, abandoned, and rejected in life, and accordingly, cannot quite comprehend what it would really feel like to be chosen.  Did your mother give you up for adoption, and it hurts you in a very deep, private place inside yourself to this day? (even though you are fifty years old!)  Did your boyfriend decide he didn’t want to be with you anymore when he found out he might have responsibility for his unborn child you were carrying?  Did your father abandon the family when the pressures became too great, and so you’ve never really trusted a man again?  Did your wife choose to ‘be’ with another man over you?  ‘Oh God,’ our hearts cry out, ‘how do I heal?  How can I ever really trust?’  Yet, he knows.  Remember, Judas, Peter, and Thomas had all walked, learned, and been with Jesus for more than three years, and yet they rejected him.  ‘You think God doesn’t know the hurt in your heart because his own men un-chose him?  

In the midst of these extremely painful realities, we have to dare to reclaim the truth that we are God’s chosen ones, even when our world doesn’t choose us.  We cannot let others determine whether or not we are chosen . . .

Our preciousness, uniqueness, and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time—our brief chronological existence—but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity.  “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” Jeremiah 31.3

You are a chosen one . . . loved, cherished, and adored.  The Creator takes great delight in you—isn’t that crazy?  Chosen—that is just too marvelous for words!

Christine

~reference: Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen