Choose Me

We all have a fundamental desire to be chosen. 

I still have scars from the daily 3rd-grade recess kickball draft. Because I was one of the youngest and smallest kids in my grade, I was always one of the last chosen for a team. “What’s so wrong with me that no one wants me?”

As we get older, the desire to be the one chosen doesn’t diminish.  It hurts when, as singles, no one chooses to ask us out for a date or propose marriage. We feel undervalued when we are not selected for a job we applied for or a team we tried out for. We feel invisible when it seems no one chooses to engage us relationally.  “Why doesn’t anyone want me? I must be damaged goods.” 

This is where the gospel meets us.

God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:4–5)

If you feel unwanted or unseen, let this truth hold you. Before you did anything good or bad, if you are in Christ, you are God’s choice. You are not here by accident. You are not a mistake. You are chosen according to the purpose of his will. 

Knowing you are chosen by God doesn’t puff us up. It takes our breath away. God was the first person to ever love you. God loved you before anyone else did. God loved you before you loved him.

As a result, you can love others before they love you. You may be the first person to extend God's love to someone. We can love the unlovable because God loved us when we were unlovable. Because of God’s unconditional love for us, we can unconditionally love those with whom we differ.

Let the fact that you are chosen by God compel you to love even the most difficult people in your life.