by Pastor Michael Salemink
Humankind is experiencing an outbreak of isolation.
The human race is enduring an epidemic of loneliness.
We’ve disconnected.
We’ve become distant.
Current culture has us taking up sides against each other.
The way of this age makes us define our
identity in opposition to one another.
Many suggest more autonomy to solve the problem.
Some suspect multiplying alternatives
will settle this predicament.
We’re trying to “choice” ourselves out of it.
We’re striving to “choice” our way into freedom.
But our worship of choice inflicted the captivity upon us.
Our pursuit of options imprisoned us under individuality.
We’ve equated license with control.
We’ve reduced liberty to influence.
Independence has turned into simply another addiction.
Selfishness has grown into the next obsession.
Appreciation for choices deteriorated
into exaltation of choice.
Appetite for preferences inflated into
obedience of prerogative’s impulse.
The lust after it has enslaved us to death.
Our world believes it better to take life than to receive it.
Abortions happen when people abandon each other.
Assisted suicides result from people
deserting one another.
Inviting death into any human life
impoverishes them all.
Disposing of one of us diminishes the rest of us.
The choice you’re looking for isn’t freedom of choice at all but freedom from choice.
The choice we want, we deeply long for, is not to do choice but instead to be choice.
The choice we desperately need is
not choosing but rather chosen.
So God chose you by making your body.
God chose you by taking a body for Himself,
And God chose you by consecrating the human body, yours and your neighbor’s, with His own.
God the Almighty Maker chose you into existence.
His work of creating proclaims every human life special.
God the Heavenly Father keeps
choosing you with forgiveness.
His labor of redeeming proves every human life precious.
God the Holy Lord will continue to choose you
for making a difference.
His activity of calling pronounces
every human life priceless.
Surprise pregnancy doesn’t just happen.
No life is accident or afterthought for Jesus.
God chose you to embody His grace and favor in it.
Terminal diagnosis doesn’t merely occur.
No human life is joke or mistake to Jesus.
God chose you to reflect joy and hope in it.
Disability doesn’t simply come about.
Nobody’s life is coincidence or side-effect with Jesus.
God chose you to display purpose in it.
Infertility doesn’t randomly take place.
No one’s life is forsaken or forgotten.
God chose you to demonstrate community in it.
Public dialogue and civic duty
don’t just transpire by chance.
No human beings are only irritant or annoyance.
God chose you to speak courage in these situations.
Difficulty and affliction don’t just arbitrarily ensue.
No persons are only tolerated or tentative.
God chose you to show compassion
in these circumstances.
Loss and lack don’t just casually arise,
No lives are hand-me-down or half-hearted.
God chose you to share truth, set love in motion,
and put life in action whenever neighbors need.