Chooser or Chosen?

      People in my family have a long history of adopting and rescuing cats but now I'm not so sure that's the way it works.

      One winter morning, my brother-in-law woke up my sister because there was a strange and hungry-looking cat crying at the back door to be let in.  A little later, Sue let the cat in.  After all, it was bitterly cold and snowing.  The black and white cat came in, ate and slept and asked to go out after about an hour and a half.  The rest of the day passed without any further sign of the cat until late in the evening, Sue thought she saw something outside as she walked past the front door.  Sure enough, there was the cat just sitting quietly and patiently in front of the door.  He had been sitting there long enough that there was a pile of snow on his head between his ears and on his shoulders.  Of course, he was brought in again and became part of the family.

      When Sue then took him to the vet to get checked out, vaccinated, and neutered, she told how they had gotten him.  The vet said that in her experience, cats are very careful about where they end up and will often scope a place out for several days before deciding whom they will adopt.  In her opinion, they had been adopted by the cat - who has made himself very much at home in his house since then!

      The little grey cat that adopted my husband last fall against all logic (he has not been known as a "cat person") is further proof that the vet was right.  My husband has a little grey shadow wherever he goes.

      There is often the same confusion when it comes to our relationship with God.  Do we choose God or does God choose us?  It's so natural to feel that we have chosen to believe in God; especially for those of us that have spent time searching in ourselves and in the world for answers or as some have put it, what fills the God-shaped hole in ourselves.  We have chosen where we worship or to follow a certain spirituality.  In the words of the old hymn, some of us "have decided to follow Jesus".

      But just as Sue decided to open the door and let the cat in, the cat had already picked her.  Paul writes in the book of Ephesians (Ephesians 1:3 -6) that we are blessed by God in Christ "just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world ... in love".  Before we can do anything, God reaches out to us in love.   Not only has God chosen us to live a life of faith but out of love God adopts us into the family.  

      Now the family of God is a family of all kinds of people in all kinds of places and goodness knows we don't all agree.  People aren't always comfortable with all the differences and words and actions can even turn ugly and hateful.  That's when it is good to remember that God doesn't ask us to be alike - just to reach out in love the way Jesus did and include others the way that God has wrapped us in love and grace.  Read Romans 8:14-17