22: Who Jesus Says We Are -- Chosen

I waited with anxious anticipation to hear back from the website after I submitted my piece. Though it was the first time I had ever ventured onto this limb, I thought that I had put my best foot forward, and that surely the guest post coordinator would find my words to be meaningful enough to share. A couple weeks later, much to my dismay, I received an email saying that my piece had not been chosen. Several months after, I interviewed for a new job and received a similar email, stating that the company had decided to hire someone else.

Needless to say, rejection is not a pleasant feeling.  I felt like kid who didn't get picked for the kickball team or invited to the sleepover. My mind wandered back to the days in high school that I would eat lunch alone. More than likely, there were also a few tears and a pint of frozen yogurt tossed in for good measure.

There are days where we all feel like the little kid in the back, jumping up and down and waving her hand wildly, craving to be picked. We all desire for our hearts to be contended for, our work to be noticed, our gifts to be celebrated. Even the most cynical of us, deep down, just wants to be chosen.

The funny thing is, despite the fact that I am painfully introverted and radically aware of my parameters, I want to be chosen for everything. I want to be picked to give the message, head up the group, have my work featured, my passions in the spotlight. Even though I know I am not able to do everything, I still want to be in the running to be asked. Perhaps it is God's grace that my name does not show up on every short list.

Truthfully, in all of my haste and busyness, I often find it difficult to choose Him. Truthfully, its difficult sometimes to just let Him choosing me be sufficient.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. -- John 15:16 ESV

I fear that when we choose to fill our schedules beyond the brim and fail to slow down in our quest to find fulfillment, we miss the fruit-filled opportunities that God has chosen for us. 

In what often looks like an effort to showcase ourselves, we neglect the divine appointments set before us to showcase God --

the God who sees us and intimately knows us and accepts us just as we are, the God who ordained us before the beginning of time to share His appeal of grace and mercy and love with the world.

What on earth could we be chosen for here in this life that could possibly outweigh the glory of that?

Of course, these divine appointments don't always seem very glorious. In fact, I dare say that most of the time, they seem like interruptions and inconveniences in our lives. They require an often uncomfortable shift of our attention.

I imagine it was this way when the Samaritan man stumbled upon a Jewish man who had been the victim of a mugging. Don't you know it cost him something to tend to that man's needs? Don't you know that other people probably didn't get it? But that's the point of it all. When we are willing to sacrifice our schedules, our treasures, our time here on this earth, we are able to make room for those very things that God created us for.

He chose us for far more than a kickball game, and He pursues us with an unrelenting love, asking us to choose Him back. Choose Him back and experience the crazy, life altering beauty that is His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

The Conversation Starts Here: 

Share about a time that you were not chosen. How did it affect you?

Share an instance when you were interrupted by a divine appointment. What was the outcome?

{Leave your questions + answers + thoughts in the comments below.}

Some Fine Print:

This is the twenty-second of thirty-one installments to be posted throughout the month of October. To view the entire table of contents as it is made available, click here. You can receive the entire series in your inbox for free by subscribing via email (no spam, just my heart by way of weblog). Please feel free to pass these words along to a friend. Sharing is caring!