What a wonderful reminder I received from my study this week!  When I was saved, I was chosen to do a special work for God.  Yes, I already knew it, but I needed to be told again!  Way too often I feel insignificant and useless but I am not! 

In school we always wanted to be chosen for a team or a game.  The one chosing was just another child but it was important  to us, and had a bearing on how we viewed our value in our class and among our peers.  Not to be chosen hurt.  It was horrible to be the last one left standing so the last team “had” to take you.  I remember feeling rejected and unwanted. It felt good to be “wanted” and this lesson helped me remember how much God wants me. 

Amazing,  I am wanted by God, the Creator of the Universe!!    If I could only remember that,  what a difference that would make in my day-to-day life!  When we are chosen it is an honor but even more so by it being our King. That gives focus and purpose and importance to what I was chosen for.   It makes me want to do my best and please the One that chose me,  to be worthy of this honor. 

Another great treasure gleaned in this lesson is that my past cannot exercise power over me.    The past is done and over.  It has absolutely nothing to do with my life right now. Again, this is something I had already learned.

 I can also apply this to my future. I may fear and wonder about what it might hold,  but it cannot exercise power over me because it has not happened. Also, much of what I fear will probably never come to pass.  Should God chose to allow trials, whatever they may be, at that moment the Lord will give me the grace and strength to go through it.  I don’t have that grace and strength now because I don’t’ need it yet.  That’s why when I try to look into the future that it looks so impossible and frightening.

A story that is imprinted in my mind concerning this is Corrie ten Boom’s story about her fears that her family could possibly face being arrested and separated as others had.  Each week her father and her rode a train into the city to get the accurate time for the clocks in their shop.  He asked  when did he give her the ticket for the train; before they boarded on or after they were on?   She told him “no”, he handed it to her when they were getting on the train, right when she needed it.  Her father told her so it was with God’s grace and strength.  He gives it to us exactly when we need it not before or after.   

The only things that have power over me: my mind, my choices, my attitude, my spirit, are the things I give power to.  That power almost always starts in my mind with a thought.  I can over come all hindrances through Him because He lives in me and I have the mind of Christ.  1 Corinthians 2:16b ”  . . .But we have the mind of Christ.”  

Satan says my problems  are an inpassable mountain, but when I quit looking my challenges through his eyes, and see them through the eyes of my Lord,  I realize it is only a small clod of dirt to be stepped on and crushed as I move ahead.

I found this week’s lesson very encouraging and uplifting!