The Joy of Being Chosen

1 Peter 2:9-10 (NIV)
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

                Going through life, we often experience the ups and downs of acceptance. Most of us have felt the sting of being left out or rejected. Most of us have also felt the delight of being chosen.

                During my junior high and high school years, I lived my life in two worlds. During the school year, I lived in the world of feeling like an outsider. I was shy and lacked self-confidence. When it came to the social life of the school, I lived in the shadows, trying to avoid attracting the attention of the wrong people. I was not very athletic, so I felt left out of that world. I found some sense of acceptance in the music department. I was a poor trumpet player, but a good singer. In band, I steadily progressed toward last chair. My senior year, the band director took pity on me and made me first chair flugelhorn. I was the only flugelhorn. Choir was a different story. The choir director took an interest in me and helped me to develop. I went to several music competitions where I did very well. But even in that arena I felt rejected. Every year our school put on a musical. Every year I would try out. Every year I would make the call backs for the speaking parts. And every year I would be placed in the chorus. For me, junior and senior high was a time of feeling like an outsider looking in.

                During the summer, I lived in a very different world. When I was 13, I attended summer camp for the first time. Although I had accepted Christ as my Savior at the age of five, it was at camp that first summer that my faith became real to me. I determined to go back the next year and work at the camp. I signed up to work in the kitchen, but when I arrived I was informed that I had been assigned to be a junior counselor in a cabin. So began my journey of finding my place.

                The summer staff had to report a week early for training. I was nervous about connecting with a new group of guys. I made my way to Stoddard lodge and found a bunk in the back corner. A couple of other guys were there unpacking their bags. I arranged my things and then sat on the bunk waiting for what was next. Bursting through the door, Mike made his grand entrance into the cabin. He was outgoing and energetic. He greeted everyone as if they were old friends. He saw me sitting in the corner and, for some unexplained reason, headed in my direction. He dropped his gear, leapt up into the top, and peered down at me. He introduced himself to me, and then noticed the tin of cookies my mom had sent with me. With a twinkle in his eye, he said, we’re going to be good friends.

                For the next five years, summer camp became the highlight of my life. Mike and I did become very good friends. We worked together each summer for six years. When I was at camp, I felt like I belonged. I became more and more self-confident and I grew in my faith. The director of the camp gave me more and more responsibility. Twice he invited me to go with him on a three week mission trip at the end of the camp season. During those wonderful summers, I felt chosen; I belonged.

                As I have grown in my faith, I have come to embrace and appreciate more and more what Peter writes in 1 Peter 2. I have come to own the truth that in Christ I am chosen, I belong. I still live in two worlds. The secular world around me is still a foreign place. I have learned how to maneuver in that world. I have even gained a certain level of acceptance. But it is not my world. I no longer belong to the world of sin. Instead, I have found my place in the family of God. In Christ, I have acceptance, value and purpose. I no longer live in fear of not being good enough, for in Christ there is no condemnation. I no longer feel like an outside, because I am a part of God’s forever family.

                My two worlds constantly intersect, but I can live in both with a new confidence and self-assurance. I am a child of God, and nothing can ever take that away from me. I have been chosen for all of eternity.

1 John 3:1-3 (NIV)
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.