chosen
I am chosen.
I am wanted.
For me.
Not for my service. Not for my talents. Not for my looks.
For me. All of me. The good and the ugly.
I am chosen.
You are chosen.
Do you believe that? Or is it a truth for someone else, but you cannot fundamentally apply it to yourself?
This truth I have struggled to apply to my own life. The theme of ‘unchosen’ runs strong through my story. I was always the last kid chosen for playground games. Boyfriends came and went when they chose someone else. The All-State Choir Director chose me, but my own high school choir instructor did not.
I have been chosen by friends and unchosen by the same friends.
Unchosen.
Unchosen is woven into my identity. But God has set me free. He has hung a banner over my head that reads: ‘Chosen’ ‘Loved’ ‘Approved’ ‘Mine’.
It was a couple of decades before my heart’s door opened a crack for that truth to seep in. Just as dry, cracked ground becomes soft and moist with a gentle rain, the truth of being chosen began to seep into the cracks of my being and eventually the cracks filled and the ‘unchosen’ places of my heart became soft, fertile ground for the truth to grow.
The truth of being chosen.
Chosen.
Me.
You.
Zephaniah 3:17 tells me that my Lord will rejoice over me with gladness, He will quiet me with His Love and He will rejoice over me with singing. But this is not for me alone.
He sings over you. You are chosen as well. You are his delight. He will ever sing over you.
Can you hear it? Listen closely:
‘I choose you. My hand is on you, choosing you–guiding you. I have you close to my heart for you are my chosen, you are my delight. My song rises high in the air around you, for you are my chosen, my delight, and I will ever sing over you.’
This is the song I hear and I pray that you may open your heart wide to the truth of ‘Chosen’ and let the identity of ‘Unchosen’ be tossed aside for the lie it is.
I lift my face to His and see myself through His eyes….
grace & truth
I wander. I wander in out of thoughts and trails of thoughts and thoughts that lead me to quiet discomfort and exuberant exclamation. I wonder over the grace the Lord has poured out in my heart and I wander closer to it.
The closer I get to grace, the more I understand truth.
Colossians 1:6 tells me that ‘all over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all it’s truth.
Grace and truth are not incompatible, but are complements to one another.
As I am flooded with grace, He leads me in His paths of truth.
Sometimes it’s truth I don’t want to hear. Sometimes it’s a growing awareness that my tendency toward insecurity is not compatible with His truth. At times it’s my pride that does not fit onto His paths of truth. Being shown an area that I need surrender to God = painful.
It doesn’t feel like grace.
But isn’t that what grace does? Jesus’ gift of grace rescued me from sin and if I wasn’t made aware that I am sinful, would I have received grace? Would I have opened my arms wide to Him the way He opened his arms wide to me?
First I had to accept painful truth: I am no good on my own. I cannot earn my way into heaven. I cannot do enough good deeds to merit my acceptance and approval.
Only when I saw the truth about me could I accept the Truth about Him and receive Grace.
This is what I ponder as I wander and wonder over God’s amazing love toward me–poured out through Jesus– in grace and truth.
Grace and truth.
Beautiful together. Inseparable. If I accept grace, then I accept truth.
I open my arms wide and welcome grace.
grace waterfall
Unmerited favor.
Favor I don’t deserve.
Favor I did nothing to merit receiving.
This is grace. My mind, which is wrapped around performance and what people think of me, finds the idea of receiving something that I don’t deserve profound. You mean I don’t have to do anything? I don’t have to measure up for a trial period before I get to keep it? You mean all the good things I have done, all the ‘points’ I received for being kind and sweet and patient don’t matter and the only one who is keeping track of ‘points’ is me? I can simply receive?
Think about it. Does that make you uncomfortable?
I have a friend who embodies generosity. Generosity with no strings attached, it simply flows from her heart and she pours that generosity out on me. I will think I don’t deserve it, but what a disservice I give to her and her generosity. If I attempt to justify her generosity to me, I am, in effect, minimizing her gift. Isn’t that what we do with God’s grace?
I minimize the gift of grace when I declare whether I can receive it or not. It is the giver who determines who receives the gift. Wouldn’t it be silly if I received an amazing Christmas gift and told the giver I couldn’t keep it? Would I even consider that? Yet, how often do I do that with the grace the Lord longs to pour out on me. Who am I to say to the Lord that he can’t give me his grace? Why would I ever consider that? Yet, that is exactly what I am saying when I strive for goodness in my own strength.
I am a midwestern girl and I grew up with the mindset that ‘if there’s a will, there’s a way’. This mindset, coupled with the Lord, has seen me through difficult and crushing situations, but when I try and do this life on my own, I quickly move from dependence to independence. I move from reliance on a God greater than I, to self-reliance. And the last I checked, I mess things up quite a bit.
It’s an interesting and mind-bedding concept. Acceptance of a gift I didn’t earn. Acceptance of a gift that I can in no way shape or form ever consider reciprocating. But that’s the thing. Reciprocating in God’s economy doesn’t mean giving back to him exactly what he gave to me. Reciprocating in God’s economy means surrender and living this life for Him.
And if I want to continue to welcome grace into my life, then I need to be ‘uncomfortable’ and freely receive the grace my Lord pours out in me.
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