Chosen

01 — The Fence

You stood against the chain-link fence and waited.

There were two captains. It was usually the biggest kids. Everybody else lined up along the backstop like excess inventory. The fast kid went first. Then the kid with the good arm. Then the kid whose dad coached Little League. Every name that got called was a small verdict on the ones still standing there. You pretended to tie your shoe. You pretended not to care. You cared. Everybody cared.

Most of us never really left that old rusty fence. We just traded the playground for the office, the social media app, the friend group, the group text that went quiet. The longing underneath never changed. It's the oldest want in the human heart. We want somebody to look down the line, see us, and say our name.

We don't just want to be liked. We want to be picked.

02 — The Preference

Being choosy is not the same as choosing.

Choosy is a feeling. It's preference. It shifts with the weather, the paycheck, the waistline, the mood. It upgrades. It keeps one eye on the exit and the other on whatever looks better down the road. Choosy shows up for the good times and quietly finds a reason to be somewhere else for the bad ones.

Our whole culture runs on choosy. Every app on your phone is engineered to keep your options open. Keep scrolling. Keep comparing. Something newer is coming. Something better is one tap away. It feels like freedom. It's more like a slow loneliness. A person who is always choosing is never really chosen by anybody.

Chosen is different. Chosen means the decision has been made. It's real. The call is final.

03 — While We Were Still…

It started with God choosing first.

The part that still doesn't make sense is that God didn't wait for us to get our act together before we could earn a spot on the roster. Paul says God demonstrated His love in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.1

Paul goes even further when he says we were chosen before the foundation of the world. Before the first fence, before the first captain, before the kid that got picked before us. Peter calls God's people a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession.23

You (and I) were picked before we could do anything to deserve it.

04 — The Garden

Jesus didn't want the cross. He chose it anyway.

People sometimes talk about Calvary like it was easy for Him. Like the divine part of Him just floated above the pain. The Gospels won't let us believe that. In Gethsemane, He was in such anguish that His sweat fell like drops of blood. He asked the Father to take the cup away. Then He said the words that changed everything: not my will, but yours, be done.4

That's the most perfect and terrible manifestation of choosing. It was not a feeling. It was a decision. He didn't go to the cross because it felt right that Thursday night. He went because He had already chosen us, and He wasn't about to “unchoose” us. Hebrews says He endured the cross for the joy set before Him, and that by that one offering we were made holy once and for all. Three days later, the empty tomb made it final. Death got conquered by a man who kept His word when every nerve in His body was begging for a different way.567

05 — The Vow

“Till death do us part” is a sentence most of us say before we know what it costs.

You stand up front in a rented tux. She walks down the aisle in a princess-like gown. Everybody cries. It's the easiest promise in the world to make on the happiest day of your life. Then life happens. A diagnosis. A layoff. A kid who won't sleep past 3:11AM. An addiction neither one of you understands or likes. A few years where you feel more like roommates than lovers. The attraction that once ran the show steps back. Popularity, preference, and passion all have expiration dates. Every temporal human response does.

That's where the vow starts to mean something. Ruth figured this out long before anybody wrote down wedding vows. Her husband was dead. She had every reason to go home. She looked at Naomi and said where you go, I will go, and your people will be my people.8

A marriage isn't sustained on how you feel during the good days. It's maintained by what you decide on the bad ones.

06 — The Cost

To be chosen is to be seen anyway.

Being chosen means somebody knows the whole file. They've seen the temper, the debt, the habit you swore you'd quit. They know your history and your hang-ups, and they recognize you anyway. They acknowledge you anyway. They stay anyway. Despite every reason they shouldn't.

That's what makes it a gift. Nobody can be truly chosen by someone who doesn't know them. That's just being admired from a distance. Admiration evaporates the second the lights come up. Being chosen costs the chooser something. It's not easy. It's not the simple way. It is sacrifice wrapped in intention. It says you are valued. It is not because you're the easiest or best option on the board, but because someone decided - you are mine.

07 — The Call

The decision is made.

Jesus said it to His disciples on the last night before the cross. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.9

So, here's the challenge, for me as much as anybody. Stop being choosy. Start choosing. Pick your wife again tonight. Pick the friend who's hard to love. Pick the brother who keeps striking out. Walk down the fence line and call the name nobody else is calling. That's what it looks like to bear the image of a God who chose first.

You were picked. I was picked. Now let's go pick somebody and remind them what it means to be chosen — not forsaken.10