JONI: I remember being the one in my elementary school classroom to raise my hand so fast… I had it up before the teacher’s question was hardly out. I’d be the one in Phys Ed to do the same: “Choose me, please, please… oh choose me, choose me!” I don’t know, call it my adventuresome spirit – call it stupid – call it brazen, whatever, I wanted to be chosen. If a team captain was eeny-meeny-miney-mo-ing, I wanted so badly to be chosen.
Well, being a Christian, I should be very happy with this thing about being chosen, because God loves doing it. We who know Christ as Savior are His chosen ones. We are chosen to be holy; we are chosen to know God's will and to be witnesses before heaven and hell concerning His Gospel. Jesus even said, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” It says elsewhere that He does not choose many who are wise or mighty or of noble birth, but rather He chooses the weak, the foolish and the despised things in order to bring to nothing the world’s wisdom so that everybody will see that the glory belongs not to man, but to God.
It says in Psalm 89 that the Lord hath chosen you to stand before Him and to serve Him. He has chosen us to be good soldiers in an invisible, spiritual war. All these things invigorate my spirit. All these things make me feel like I'm back in school: Oh, God, I'm so glad you’ve chosen me!
But there is one kind of choosing that, well… I never raised my hand for. It happened almost 40 years ago. It was when God whispered Isaiah 48:10 into my ear and said, “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” And then, just in case I might think that was all just a bunch of Old Testament stuff, God underscored it in Acts 9 where He said of the apostle Paul, “You are my chosen instrument. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Once I left the hospital, a quadriplegic in my wheelchair, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that now I was God's chosen instrument, and God was choosing me to suffer for His namesake. Not to be bitter, not to be spiteful or angry, not to cave in under depression or wallow in despair, but I was chosen to handle it gracefully; that is, full of grace, God's grace, all for His namesake.
Suffering and hardship, affliction or pain might not be something you would choose; I certainly did not choose my paralysis, but if God chooses it for you… or rather, you for it, just know that your trials are stepping stones to spiritual maturity. The testing of a trial is meant to not merely prove your strength, but increase it. And you can raise your hand and say “Amen” to that!
AL: Indeed, Joni! And there’s a wonderful promise in Psalm 65:4 which simply says, “Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!” and that’s certainly what we want, all of us, to know and love Jesus Christ as Savior.
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