Has this thought ever crossed your mind, "I wish life came with a great big do-over button!"
While I'm not one to dwell on the past or live full of regret for mistakes or life situations gone awry, but as the years of living accumulate in my rearview mirror, if I'm honest, I have to admit that when I look back on some days or years that I've lived, I think, Wow, that was a doozy and yes, a do-over button seems like a pretty good idea right about now.
Actually, I was just talking about this very idea with a few friends the other day.
You see, I came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was a wee girl. I was no taller than the pew behind which I stood and peered out over as listened to Phil Driscoll peal out his rendition of I Exalt Thee on his trumpet.
Tears streamed down my cheeks because I knew I was in His presence...I was on Holy Ground. And I knew it. I don't know how, but my little girl's heart recognized the presence of the Lord in that place of space and time that day. As the blue stage lights shone in that dark church auditorium and as smoke from the smoke machines scattered across the stage that evening filled the room, I worshiped the Lord in awe and reverence.
From that experience, from that very first memory of sensing the holy presence of God and responding in worship out of a heart of adoration from the very heart of my then then young little self, I have loved Him deeply my entire life.
And I never looked back.
This is my personal salvation testimony. Oh sure, when it comes to people I love, I have had my share of painful, heart breaking disappointments like everyone else. No doubt about it. That's the nature of the beast for as long as we live in this messed up, lost, and broken world. But for me, personally, having met and fallen for this man named Jesus at such an early age saved me from having to experience some of the crooked and jagged roads of brokenness and lostness that others have known and walked.
As I paced my terraza (a porch area on a the roof of homes here in Guatemala where I live), I talked with my girlfriends and bounced baby girl, patting her bottom in an effort to convince her that she indeed wanted to fall asleep.
These friends and I, we talk regularly of the ways in which Jesus is calling each of us to obedience as we meditate on and pour over His Word and whatever it is we sense that He is speaking to us as we read it. This night we were diving deep into a discussion about Paul's admonishment to the early Corinthian church about the danger and power of sexual sin in 1 Corinthians 5 through about chapter 9, reflecting on how strongly Paul was both emphasizing the dangers of sexual sin, in particular, and also exhorting this ancient group of believers to avoid it at any and all costs.
I shared out of my own experience with sexual sin. I was four, maybe five years old, in the floor of the backseat of my dad's patrol car where I flipped through the pages of a magazine I'd found. My little-girl eyes absorbed the images of men and women who, oddly, were not wearing clothes, right into my soul, as today I can remember every detail of those images. Fast forward a couple of years to when a young man that had been babysitting me sexually assaulted me. Fast forward a few more years to when many days and nights and weeks of my teenage and young adult years were spent sorting through and healing from the feelings of confusion, anger, betrayal, abandonment I'd felt as a result of the impacts of sexual sin in my own family- lies, deceit, separation, divorce. Much of this time of my life is still is a blur for me today. I know all too well, the impacts and consequences of the hungry, fatal, sinful nature, which we all carry within us until we surrender to this man called Jesus.
As I shared these experiences with my friends and how strongly the truth of Paul's words of caution resonated with me, my friends began to share that they too had lived lives and made choices that caused the truth of Paul's words of caution to ring true for them.
We shared this space of impact and remembrance as the mark of grief carried by these still painful memories touched each of us in our own life. Even though we are going after Jesus today, we remember the sting of the loss and the sorrow, the darkness in which we once lived and, for some of us, almost died...the physical consequences of ours or other's sin that bear out and still touch our lives today.
How about you?
Do you ever think back on dumb or selfish choices you've made over the course of your own life, the hurtful things you said? The broken friendships? Maybe a marriage that ended painfully or a business venture that failed from which you walked away with absolutely nothing to show? Maybe you made decisions that landed you in a concrete cell behind iron bars for a night or maybe a year or more....or maybe you stubbornly made choices to continue down the path of destructive behavior at the expense of your own wellbeing or that of the ones you love so dearly?
How about you?
Do you ever think, Gosh, it would be so nice to just have a do-over button...
It was in this space with my beautiful friends that I began to ponder The Choosing.
John 6:44 tells us that, No one can come to Me (Jesus) unless the Father who sent me draws him and John 15:16 also says that I did not choose God, but that He chose me.
He CHOSE ME.
I chewed on it. I let it settle. I dug it up and turned it over again and let it settle again.
How is this possible? But it says it right there. It is impossible, the verse reads, for anyone to come to Jesus, unless first drawn by God.
I didn't choose Him. He chose me.
Me. You. He CHOSE us. The day. The time. The moment. He CHOSE it all.
Kinda like when I stand in front of a produce case of avocados at the grocery store on a mission to find the perfect avocado. I scan them... I inspect. I feel for the perfect impressionability- not too hard and not too soft until- AHAH! I find it! Just the right one. A little bit of lime, a little bit of salt, and viola! Perfection!
That's what God did with me. With you.
He SAW us. He CHOSE us. Not the day before and not the day after. Not a moment too soon and not a moment too late. Not before we made that selfish decision that wrecked the lives of the ones we hold dearest or before we said the words that sliced the heart of the one we love most or before the guy who was babysitting me violated me when I was just four years old. Not a moment too soon and not a moment too late.
He could have chosen some of us before our lives got so dang messy, right? Before we screwed things up so badly. Before we hurt others or maybe others hurt us.
But He didn't.
He CHOSE us, I have to believe, in exactly the moment He did, ON purpose and WITH purpose.
We never came to Him without having been drawn by His goodness. He wooed us. Opened our eyes to see and enabled our hearts to respond in faith AT EXACTLY THE MOMENT IN TIME AND SPACE THAT HE DESIRED because He would receive glory and it would be for my GOOD.
This knowing changes how the pain and sorrow of yesterday tastes in my mouth. It cushions the grief of the sense of "lost" time. MY story was chosen.
He CHOSE Noah's story.
He CHOSE Samson's story.
He CHOSE David's story.
He CHOSE Rahab's story.
He CHOSE Mary Magdelin's story.
He CHOSE Peter's story.
He CHOSE My story.
And He CHOSE Your story.
It is in the changing of my story by His story of grace and redemption that He is glorified. The Bible says that it is HIS goodness that draws not only us, but others, back to Him. It is his GOODNESS that brings us to repentance.
To not only carry the remembrance of my story in the light of His forgiveness and grace, but to allow our stories to be told in the light of His redeeming love is the greatest gesture of gratitude I could ever offer Him.
Today, He invites us each to surrender the ugliness of our stories to be used for HIS GLORY.
How 'bout it? Will you surrender to His Choosing?
Verses Cited in the New Living Translation
John 6:44
John 15:16
Romans 2:4
Written by: Amy Pixcar, Email: arpixcar@gmail.com
Comments