Chosen

"You're Jacob, my first choice,
descendants of my good friend Abraham.
I pulled you in from all over the world,
called you in from every dark corner of the earth,
Telling you, 'You're my servant, serving on my side.
I've picked you. I haven't dropped you.'
Don't panic. I'm with you...
Do you feel like a lowly worm, Jacob?
Don't be afraid.
Feel like a fragile insect, Israel?
I'll help you.
I, God, want to reassure you.
The God who buys you back, The Holy of Israel.
I'm transforming you from worm to harrow,
from insect to iron.
As a sharp-toothed harrow you'll smooth out the mountains,
turn those tough old hills into loamy soil.
You'll open the rough ground to the weather,
to the blasts of sun and wind and rain.
But you'll be confident and exuberant,
expansive in The Holy of Israel!"

{Excerpts from Isaiah 41 in the Message}

Isn't it beautiful to know we are chosen??

Order From Chaos

Just read this in a book for school and was reminded on the consistency of God. He's so good!

"On the Sabbath the Hebrews recalled how Yahweh had created the world out of formlessness and void, and how the Creator had crowned the creation with the Sabbath itself. Thus on each Sabbath the Hebrews celebrated an order that was real for all time, an order as old and fundamental as the creation itself, an order celebrating God's triumph over chaos. Empires might come and go, but this order would always remain. Each celebration of the Sabbath affirmed a faith that the God who in the beginning had brought order out of chaos would conquer captivity's historical chaos as well..."

-The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context (Calvin J. Roetzel)