CHOSEN FOR … GREATNESS?

By JK Stenger

Chosen … me?

Yes, I was. I had no doubt about it.

Destined for greatness and the best that life had to offer. Or so I thought in my childish five-year-old mind, and it seemed everyone else around me thought so too. Except perhaps my older brother, who would occasionally try to knock some sense into me with a few whacks.

Regardless, I was chosen. Who it was that had chosen me I could not say, but at least in those days, the question seemed irrelevant.

I came from good stock. Intellectuals, money makers, movers and shakers, and it was clear I would be the next in line to further the success of the “kingdom.”

At least, so I thought.

In those days of my youth, things were handed to me on a silver platter and I assumed it was the way life worked. One is born into success because he is chosen. You don’t have to work for it; you don’t have to sweat, because you just get it. And in those rare moments when you don’t get it, you whine and cry and you stamp your feet until you do.

Really?

Well, I thought so. That was my life in those dark days of ignorance.

A few people along the way suggested there was a problem. That was annoying, but it wasn’t a big deal, because when you are chosen like I was, it should be fairly easy to get rid of the discordant voices. When that happened, my response was to ridicule. I described these folks as ignorant, uninformed or evil, and if they persisted in annoying me, I just pretended they were invisible and I cut them out of my life. Worked every time, at least for as long as I was in control.

Then came the day when I was no longer in control: The day I left home.

I donned my silver armour, ready to become a valiant knight and make my mark on the world.

I walked forward with my head up high, nose in the air – since I was chosen, there was nothing that could stand in the way.

At least, so I thought.

I became an artist. I would be a brilliant painter. A magnificent illustrator. A writer perhaps, but whatever I would become, it would be easy.

But instead of happiness and the early morning rays on a balmy spring day, the atmosphere around me grew cold. Winds of adversity struck. Deep loneliness, living in poverty with drugs being my only friend. They were like dark storms that shattered my branches, the ones I thought were unbreakable, snapping them off like matchsticks in the hand of an evil giant. I could not understand. Why was this happening? After all, was I not chosen?

And for the first time, I wondered who it was that had actually chosen me.

Religion knocked at my door. That should help. Jehovah’s Witnesses came, Mormons left. Even some well-meaning Christians tried to pray for me and called on the exorcist to deliver me from a spirit of pride. That was ridiculous, of course. Me, a spirit of pride? Come on. Even though I groped around in darkness, I was chosen and they were not. I told them I did not need God. After all, I had learned from my hefty collection of New Age books that I was God myself. These Christians didn’t agree. They said I didn’t look like God at all. Silly people, they just didn’t know any better.

And then came that day …

That one day on which everything turned upside down; or rather, it turned right side up.

That was the day I stared death in the face.

It was dark. Pitch dark, and death grinned at me; vicious and mean. And death, with words that chilled me to the bone, gave me the answer as to who had chosen me. “Come on, jump into my abyss of darkness. After all, I choose you and my darkness will take care of you.”

This was real. It wasn’t just because of the drugs I had taken. It wasn’t just a hallucination or a slimy dream from which you can easily wake up. I was afraid like a little boy; lonely and lost. Surely, my New Age books would tell me what to do, but they did not. They lay useless in my lap to be discarded like toilet paper.

I had it all wrong and I needed a way out.

“God,” I whispered hoarsely while the tears flowed from my eyes, “If you are there … help me!”

In looking back, I can imagine the conversation that went on in Heaven at that moment. There must have been God’s holy ones who shook their heads and folded their wings in rejection.

“You can’t listen to him, Father. Have you noticed the record of this boy? The pages of his life are stained with sin and filled with rubbish. He’s a liar, a cheat who ridiculed others, and who even went to great lengths to tell others that You are not there. We’d rather not have him in Heaven, Father.”

And Jesus must have said something like, “Hush. The name of My game is called Grace. Therefore, send that boy My help and rejoice, because a broken human being is calling out to Me.”

With eyes that were blazing like the sun, radiating warmth and compassion that would thaw even the frostiest of hearts, Jesus then showed the angels His scarred and nail-pierced hands, saying in a longing voice: “That is My child. Help him, for I have chosen him from before the foundations of the world.”

That day I broke. I wept and raised my hands to the heavens. I was chosen, after all. But it wasn’t the way I had thought it would be. Oh, it was so much better than I could have ever imagined. The difference was as high as the heavens are above the earth, and as far as the East is from the West.

Me … chosen?

Yes, I am. Chosen by the One who carried a cross for me, died in my place, and who stilled the storms of my misery. Yes, I have no doubt about it, and now I know that it was never about me, but that it is always and forever about Him.

———-

ABOUT JK STENGER

Born and raised in the Netherlands, I am a Dutch national who has had the opportunity to travel the world extensively. Since retiring, I’ve devoted myself to writing. I write books, stories, blog articles, texts, anything, really…

Anything? Well, almost anything…

Someone once said, “The world knows enough hell; let’s show her a little more heaven.” To me, that’s the standard. As long as it is true, lovely, clean, happy and encouraging, I will write it. My hope is that the words flowing from my hand will inspire and enlighten, rather than confuse or discourage.

You can check out JK’s books on his Amazon author page, and you can reach him through his website,