Chosen by God (A Valentine's Day Message for Single Women)

LeAnne always dreaded school dances.  She enjoyed getting a new dress and hanging out with her friends but she hated the slow dances.  She felt a great amount of anxiety waiting for a boy to ask her to dance.  It was enough to make her feel like throwing up.  And every time, without fail, her friends would get asked to dance and she would be left holding up the wall.  Standing against the wall, LeAnne would watch the other couples sway to the music with sadness.  They called her a wallflower but she didn't feel like much of a blossom.  As a single woman, it may be easy to fall into the same feelings of despair as LeAnne.  Valentine's Day can be especially hard.  During this season of love, it seems as if everything is targeted towards couples: commercials, movies, products, songs etc.  How do we as single women avoid falling into the trap of being a wallflower?  We can have our own love affair with God.  In God's love letter to us, He tells us all about his love for us.  First of all, it is everlasting and nothing can separate us from His love (Rom 8:38-39).  As a matter of fact, God created us each individually while we were still in our mother's womb and He ordained all of our days before one of them ever came to be (Ps 139:13-16).  He even knows how many hairs are on your head (Matt 10:30).  And knowing that we would be sinners, God sent His Son to save us even while we were still in sin (Rom 5:8)! Just as LeAnne desired to be held and danced with, God wants to hold us (Ps 63:8) and whisper sweet nothings in our ear (John 10:27, Matt 10:27).  Ladies, God's love for us is so high and deep that we cannot fully grasp all the ways He loves us.  Oftentimes as single women, we spend so much time longing for a relationship that we miss out on the greatest relationship of all - one with God.  GOD CHOSE YOU!  He wants to be your friend, your confidant, your love - your dance partner.  He loves you and desires to show you just how much.  He wants to know - Is He enough for you in this season of singleness?

An Unlikely Person

Read Joshua 2, Joshua 6:22-25 and Matthew 1:1-5

The story of Christ’s birth is indeed a miracle. That God would use a virgin to give birth to our Savior will never cease to amaze me. However, in Matthew 1 we witness another miracle of Christ’s birth – the inclusion of Rahab in the family tree.

In Joshua, we learn that Rahab was a prostitute who kept two Israelite spies safe as they snuck into Jericho to spy out the land. Because of her faith and assistance to the spies, her entire family was spared from death when the Israelites arrived to take the land. We don’t hear about her again until Matthew 1:5 when we learn she was one of Jesus’s ancestors.

We aren’t surprised to see great men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Solomon in Jesus’s genealogy, but a prostitute from Jericho? What was God thinking? Why would He include such an unlikely person? The answer is her faith. Rahab was familiar with the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Amorite kings. She believed the Lord of the Isrealites was “God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Joshua 2:11b). Not only did she have faith, but she put that faith into action by assisting the spies. Thousands of years later, her name is made known not only as a great woman of faith but as one of Jesus Christ’s ancestors – how awesome is that?

The story of Rahab proves God can use us regardless of our past. He wants use us to accomplish great things. We just need to trust in Him and take our next step of faith.

Recovering from a Fumble

Matthew 26:31-35, 69-75
Acts 2

There’s 20 seconds left in the first half of the game, and the home team is down. The quarterback steps back, ball in hand. He senses someone coming and in a panic, he fumbles the ball. A player from the other team recovers it and runs down the field to score a touchdown. With his head hung low, the quarterback makes his way to the locker room.

After a talk with his coach, the quarterback returns renewed. He performs better in the second half than in any other game. He throws with accuracy and runs with speed. He leads his team to victory and is carried off the field. He didn’t let the fumble of the first half stop him from winning the game.

Peter is a lot like this quarterback. In Matthew 26, we see Peter at his lowest point. Just hours after Jesus has been arrested, Peter has denied Him three times in public – a virtual spit in Jesus’s face. When the rooster crowed, Peter remembered Jesus’s words and began to weep, realizing what he had done. Peter, up to this point, was a model follower of Christ. He was chosen by Jesus to become a “fisher of men,” he recognized Jesus as the Christ and he was the only disciple with enough faith to join Jesus for a walk on the water. How could he ever recover from such a fumble?

Fast forward to Acts 2. Jesus has ascended to Heaven and the disciples are worshipping together. Others around them, wondering what’s going on, begin to deduce that they are drunk. Peter steps up and begins to preach to the crowd. He shares the Gospel and 3,000 people were saved! Those 3,000 shared the Gospel with others who shared the Gospel with others. And the cycle continued until someone eventually shared the Gospel with us, leading us to Christ! Can you imagine if Peter had not recovered from his fumble?

We all fumble in life – no one is perfect aside from God. What’s important is how you get back up and recover – repent, ask God for forgiveness and forgive yourself. Imagine what you can do once you recover from a fumble!