“I feel like the Lord wants me to read you this verse,” my friend Sara said to me, before reading 1 Peter 2:9— “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”
“Okay, thanks— that’s a nice verse.” In my head: okay, God? I don’t get it.
And I didn’t. Not yet.
At some point during the month of May, while we were in Sunyani, the Lord revealed something very sad to me: a very full attic— dusty and filled with hard, painful memories that I never worked through and that I kept putting there so I didn’t have to deal with them. As I decided to unpack them, memory by memory, I had no idea how hard it would be. In each one, I saw Jesus standing at a distance, watching me with arms crossed and a disappointed expression.
One word kept coming up: chosen. I have never felt chosen.
I started to cry. I continued to go through memories I hadn’t thought about in years. As I went through, I felt overwhelming emotion welling up in me. “Where were you, Jesus? Where were you? WHERE WERE YOU?” It felt like I could scream it out loud. He had me go through the memories again:
In each moment, He was right next to me. Crying with me. Protecting me. Taking on the weight of my pain and worthlessness. I started to cry harder. In that moment, sitting on my bed, I felt him sitting next to me. “I was there,” He said. “I was there.”
That verse that Sara read to me came back to my mind. You are a chosen people. Chosen.
In the days that followed that night, I was reading through Acts when I stopped on chapter 9, verse 15:
“Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and children of Israel.”
God wasn’t talking about a good, decent man— He was talking about Saul, the man who was, essentially, a terrorist. Saul killed Christians and terrorized the church until God came to him and asked: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul was freaked out. “Who are you, Lord?” God responded, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Rise and enter the city, and you will be told what to do.” God then proceeded to blind Saul (casual) and sent him on his way.
Three days later, God had a man named Ananias go and lay hands on Saul to unblind him. Ananias was like, “uh, okay? Homeboy is literally the worst.” And then chapter 9, verse 15 happens. God tells Ananias that Saul was chosen.
A few things to take away from this: Saul, who eventually became Paul, ended up being one of most prominent authors of the Bible, writing more than a few books of the New Testament. He dedicated the latter half of his life serving the same God he spent the former part putting people in prison for following. God can use anyone, anytime, regardless of your past.
Second thing: God handpicks people for specific things. He gives us gifts and talents and passions and convictions and we can take those and glorify Him in incredibly unique ways. God chose Saul to become Paul, to go before the Gentiles (non-Jews) to tell them how Jesus was for everyone. Because if this Jesus even loved people who ravaged His church, then where does His love end? It doesn’t. It just doesn’t. What a powerful testimony. And He chose Paul to tell it.
We spent two months in Ghana: a month and a half in Sunyani, and then a week and a half in Kintampo, for Ask the Lord (which is going where the Lord tells you to go, without a contact, place to stay, way to get food, etc.). During our time in Kintampo, we connected with a doctor, Gavin, that Jessica knew through her Rotary club. He introduced us to Haruna, who quickly became one of my favorite people in my three months in Africa.
Haruna grew up Muslim and swore he would never be a Christian…until one day, when he knew he had to give it a second look. Despite pressures from his family, He started following Jesus and never looked back. He mentioned that he had never been baptized, and that his friends had been trying to get him baptized for forever, and we all looked at each other excitedly. Jessica spoke up: “Do you want to be baptized this weekend?”
That Saturday, as we drove to Kintampo waterfalls to baptize our new friend, Haruna told us: “When I woke up this morning, I had an electrocution of energy. I knew I had to be baptized.” And seeing him go under the water and come back up, I knew. That was our purpose there. God had brought a team of 6 girls to this little town to encourage and baptize Haruna. Because He loves Haruna that much. Because he is chosen. Just like I am. Just like you are.
The same God that made the entire universe, the planets, the stars, our perfectly inhabitable earth with the sun and the moon and the water to sustain us, is the same God of little details: of unique laughs, of fingerprints, of speaking verses over us through our friends before we even know their significance, of atoms and molecules and heartbeats, of knowing our deepest and most painful histories and saying, “I love you anyway. I have chosen you.”
