The Chosen One
As a woman, the desire is almost always to be chosen. If I sit pretty enough, quiet enough, emotionally stable enough, maybe, just maybe, I’d be chosen. Not quite chosen for who I am, but chosen nonetheless, and somehow that feels like enough.
We’re taught from a young age that much of our worth is wrapped around being chosen. Growing up, I heard different versions of the same message for different reasons: “Don’t do that or no man will ever want you.” So, as the obedient little girl I tried to be, I did as I was told. I continued to dial myself down until I became unrecognizable to myself, all in hopes of becoming worthy enough to be chosen.
Even today, I still battle many of those disclaimers as I try to rediscover who I was before people and circumstances taught me that I was not enough as I was.
There are many directions I could go with this because I have a lot on my mind regarding what it means to be chosen.
But first, let’s anchor this in the Word; the truth.
Growing up, the goal was always to be chosen by the opposite sex. If I wasn’t being chosen, then something must have been wrong with me, and I needed to improve somewhere.
But what happens when you are chosen and discover that it still is not enough? What happens when the thing you spent your life chasing cannot satisfy the ache within you?
In my adult years, I’ve learned that you can be chosen by many and still feel as though you do not belong. You can be physically affirmed daily and still feel worthless inside. How did I learn this? Through experience.
As I stepped into adulthood, I experienced something that once felt unfamiliar to me: being chosen and affirmed almost daily. Yet as I’ve continued to grow in Christ, I’ve realized that what I had been searching for throughout my life could never be found through man. It was a craving that could never truly be satisfied by people. But through Christ, I found that the craving itself became nonexistent, not because I no longer desired to be chosen, but because in Him, that desire was fulfilled.
The Word of God reminds us that before we belong to anyone or any community, we have always belonged to our Heavenly Father:
1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
John 15:16: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”
I’ve found that when I truly recognize and believe that I have already been chosen in Christ, that I already belong, I naturally attract relationships that align with God’s will for my life because I am no longer seeking or accepting them out of desperation, but out of authenticity.
To go a little further, I personally do not pursue men, not because I believe pursuit is beneath me or because I think I deserve to be chased, but because my approach to romance is the same as my approach to everything else in my life: obedience.
The Word of God says that “he who finds a wife finds a good thing” (Proverbs 18:22), not vice versa, and I believe that distinction is intentional. Scripture calls men to lead their households, and wives to submit to that leadership. Because of that, I believe that a man who is spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically prepared to carry such a responsibility is also capable of pursuing the woman he has found a wife in. Not because he has it all together, but because his steps are ordered by the Lord, and he is empowered by God to move with courage and intentionality.
To step into that role requires courage. To sustain a marriage and lead a household requires even more of it.
So in waiting patiently on the Lord, I am not being passive. I am being intentional. I am trusting that in becoming the kind of woman I desire to be, I will also attract the kind of man I desire to walk beside one day.
When we are desperate to be chosen, we often try to manipulate circumstances with our own hands. But when you are secure in your belonging to Christ and resting in that truth, you can wait patiently for what God has ordained instead of forcing what your own hands manufactured.
