God’s choices (The limp is what qualifies me!)

I heard something today that made me start to think about God’s choices.

I am learning that if our lives are guided by God’s hand, that if indeed He knows us even while we are still clots of blood in our mothers’ wombs, then I’m guessing that we must also believe that whatever has happened in our lives, good or bad, is what He has allowed to happen.

The Apostle Peter once said, “Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?” It is so easy to believe that God loves us, that God will work in and through us because of some ability that we have, or because of some godliness that we have. I fall into this trap so often. And I find myself thinking, “If I can pray more, or read my Bible more, then I would see God work in a certain way in my life”.

That is not to say that God does not require us to pray more, or dig deeper into His Word, no. Still, it is slowly seeping into my thick head, that walking with Him is not a merit-based system; that when God wanted to prove to me that He loved me, He thought about it and then decided that the best way to do that was to turn the floodgate of His love on me full blast, to give me the greatest expression of His love while I was still the farthest from Him that I could ever be.

It makes me start to see why Paul would boast about his weaknesses, why a bloodthirsty killer like David would get the accolade of a man after God’s heart, why Moses the murderer was God’s friend (kind of like the Clinton regime according China ‘most favoured nation status’). It makes me understand why Jesus kept company with the prostitutes and sinners and tax collectors.

Someone once said, “Never trust a man without a limp”. I’m starting to understand, the limp is what qualifies me!