I launched our Spring study last week called We Are What He Calls Us. If you missed the introduction and background, I encourage you to read it before you begin. I want this to be a place of interaction so please post your comments, your questions, your insights and your own perspective in the comments (or on Facebook) so we can connect with one another and walk alongside each other. Some women today may have never opened a Bible and some may know exactly what page Obadiah is located on in their Bible. But it doesn’t matter. This is just a look at how God sees us so that we can begin to see ourselves in that same light. If you have a career like I do, then it’s easy to base our opinions of ourselves on whether or not we’ve gotten a promotion or landed the job or received an award. But if our value instead were based on how God sees us, then I think we all could find a safer spot for our spirit and emotions to rest.
Today, He Calls Us: Chosen.
You may be incredibly athletic. I am not. In fact, I still remember the kids in school sighing when they got “stuck with me” for dodge ball. I was never the first one chosen for a team. I felt I was never “chosen.” Other times, I was chosen, but then discarded or disappointed. I remember the elation of being with a man I fell in love with – I couldn’t believe he had chosen ME. I walked around daydreaming about our future. Then he decided to choose someone else after a while. That felt worse than having never been chosen in the first place. I can also remember the rush of joy when I was chosen for the job or the promotion or the award, but then realizing once I got down the path of that choice that I wished I had never been chosen.
The reason it is important to BEGIN with the fact that God tells us we are chosen is because it may be the most important title that you or I wear. Regardless of all of the other stuff going on around me, this fact is constant. The world can give me awards or take them away. The world can offer me promotions or take away my job. The world and people in it can choose me or change their mind. But if I know in the deepest part of my soul that the God that created the universe and imagined oceans and platypus and rainbows picked me, then I can weather the changing and unpredictable opinions surrounding me.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not naïve. Being the last one picked on the team will always sting. Being rejected by someone you love will break your heart. Having another rejection email pop up for the job you knew you were perfect for is demoralizing. But every single day you will still hold the assurance that God Almighty CHOSE YOU. Created you. He picked you first and He will not change His mind. You are chosen. I am chosen.
How do I know?
Deuteronomy 14:1-2: You are the children of the Lord your God. …you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the people on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.
Ephesians 1:4: For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Colossians 3:12: Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
I Peter 2:9: But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
I Thessalonians 1:4: For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you.
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