Power-filled Postive Thinking-Chapter 8A—Chosen-HOW AMAZING IS THAT!!
It was late November and there were multiple houses in my neighborhood being broken into. What was a formerly good neighborhood had suddenly begun to be unsafe. Mom was away in rehab and would be for another month or two. The house was left alone for the long hours that I worked and besides I realized that when mom did come home; I needed to find a way to keep her safe. I had put in a full alarm system; yet, thought perhaps a large guard dog would help. After reviewing a website that had rescue dogs, I had come upon the picture and story of Jason. He was a Rottweiler/hound mix who was a little older than the other dogs; yet, he caught my eye. When I arrived at the shelter, the workers began to try to convince me to take another younger dog. They said Jason did not do well with other dogs and in fact had been returned from every foster home they had placed him. Currently, Jason was living in a crate. After I saw several other dogs paraded for me to see, I insisted on seeing Jason. They locked up all the other dogs and came out then with Jason. His face was scarred and there seemed sadness about him as he anxiously looked at me. He responded quickly to the slightest touch of my hand with eager anticipation, a yearning look in his eyes. Then I announced, “I choose Jason.” Over the course of the next several months, Jason changed. He had pulled me harshly as we walked; but, even when he pulled me down—I never let go. Then, as though he realized that it was love that made me hold tight and he quit pulling against me on the walks. With a sigh because it was late and I was exhausted, he watched as I had cleaned up the trash he had thrown all over the kitchen floor; then, he never again went through the trash cans. He slept on the dining room rug under the table just outside my bedroom door as though keeping guard to protect my room—his eyes always fixed on my door. My house did get broken into two years later and Jason ran the burglars off. Six months after that invasion, Jason died. A dog with so many scars, unwanted and abandoned had become the best dog I had ever seen or known because I had chosen him.
God chose me. Perhaps more than I would like to admit, I was much like Jason. You see God knew all my frailties, my insecurities, my fears, my failures, and all the scars that would need to be healed. He saw the entirety of my life and still chose me. Ever so gently and patiently, He has loved me, guided me, and transformed me. When I would dig through the trash of life searching for counterfeit joys, He would clean up the mess I made and look upon me with His compassion. When I would pull hard against His will, He never let go of me. As the years went by, I began to realize what a wondrous act of Grace it was that God chose me.
So it is—beyond the truths that I am His Beloved, Blessed, and Redeemed Saint; I am also His Chosen. Ephesians 1: “3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:”
For some of you, this may at first appear to be a difficult concept to understand. Perhaps, you wish to fight against the idea of being chosen; after all that would mean I had little to do with my own salvation. Yet, for me it is such a comforting thought that He would choose me with all my frailties, my scars and my idiosyncrasies. Knowing every moment I would doubt Him, every time I would speak wrongly, every time that I would chase after other joys, and every time I would fail to love Him enough—yet, He chose me. He revealed Himself to me. He opened the eyes of my heart that I might see His love, His Glory, and His beauty shining so brightly that I would come to desire Him above all other treasures of this earth. As we explore this further, I will not attempt to say I fully understand all of this; but, I am certain that it is real. In fact, last January I did a lengthy series on these truths. For here, let me say I will not pretend to understand the mind of God. Isaiah 55: “7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
As I consider my whole life, I find I must still sing “Your Grace Still Amazes Me”. Won’t you join me in song today?
©2015 Effie Darlene Barba
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