Church newsletter pastoral column for St. Peter Lutheran Church, Greene, Iowa, for June, 2021.
Chosen and Called As Is
“You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”
– John 15:16
When you read the Bible, you can’t help but notice that most of the work God does is through people. Over and over in Scripture, God calls people to come and follow, to stop what they’re doing and trust God and accomplish some mission, some task to build God’s kingdom.
And as I read those stories, I can’t help wondering about the people God chooses. We think of people like Abraham, Moses, Paul, Mary, all these Biblical people as great heroes of faith, and they are, but they’re not the people you’d expect God to choose. God doesn’t seem to choose the most talented people, or the people with the most resources, or the best educated, or best looking, or the people with the greatest influence, or any of the criteria you or I would use if we were selecting people to accomplish a mission in the world.
Instead, over and over, throughout Scripture, God picks these ordinary, unexceptional people, and then calls them to do extraordinary things. And about the only thing these people have in common is that when God calls, they’re willing to answer. What a great example for us today!
Christian singer Peder Eide puts it well in one of my favorite songs, titled As Is.
The people God chooses to accomplish God’s mission are flawed, human people. But through the Holy Spirit, God gives them everything they need. As someone wise once said, “God doesn’t call the equipped; God equips the called.” Our job as followers of Jesus is to answer God’s call. We don’t need to have all the answers or understand everything. We simply need to make the choice to follow God to the best of our ability. God can and will work with whatever we have – and whatever we have to offer is enough for God to use. Thanks be to God!
In Christ,
-Pastor Daniel Flucke