How many of us were unfortunate enough to have lived through the grade school days when 2 “Team Captains” were chosen (the 2 most athletic kids in the class) and the rest of us lined up along a wall and waited to be picked for a team? Now wasn’t that a great big bundle of grade school, and childhood trauma? The utter agony of waiting , with each pick that passed, wondering if you were going to be chosen next. What if, horror of all childhood horrors, you were the very last one picked? As a boy there was always the paralyzing fear that even all the girls would be picked before you. Then, at some magic moment, your named would fall from the lips of one of those elite athlete captains, and suddenly you were transformed into 10 feet tall and bullet proof. That intoxicating feeling of having been chosen, that someone wanted me on their team, will forever be etched into my memory. They called me out by name and did it intentionally.
Looking back I now realize I was often chosen because I was the best athlete out of a motley crew of misfits and “I couldn’t care less about sports” kids. I always wondered what it would be like to be the very first kid chosen. To be so wanted, so respected that the two team captains would actually compete to get to pick first, just so they could pick me. I don’t know that I was ever the very last kid picked, but I know for a fact I was never the very first kid picked either. What it must have been like to be wanted on a team. Not simply picked simply because you were a part of a class and someone HAD to pick you or you were the best of the really bad options left. Chosen because among all the other kids the captain wanted YOU to be on his team. To be wanted is intoxicating.
If we can learn nothing else from the story of Mephibosheth it is that God chooses you, not because He is obligated to do so, but because He deeply WANTS you to be His. Hear me clearly, He does not want your religious behavior, He does not want some version of you that you plan to be “one day”. He wants YOU, exactly as you are today, with your past, with your dumpster fire of a present, and with your well intended and yet unknown future. He just wants you and He wants to grow a deepening, abiding and abundant relationship with you.
The Bible is full of stories in which God pursues someone out of a desire for a relationship with them. One of my favorite ones is the parable Jesus told when He said :
“What do you think? If someone has a hundred sheep, and one goes astray, won’t he leave the ninty-nine on the hillside and go and search for the stray? And if he finds it , truly I tell you, he rejoices over that sheep more than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. In the same way, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18: 12-14).
I love that parable, however it speaks about the covenant of salvation. I believe God wants use to grow deeper in our relationship with Him, and is relentless in pursuing us to do so. One such example is Colossians 2:6-7:
“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, being rooted and built up in Him and established in faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.”
You are doing this Bible study as a result of His desire that you would know Him and His love and favor for you more deeply. You may think you just decided to do this study. You did not just decide, you responded to His call to you to come deeper into Him. I always pray that God will bring to these studies exactly who He has chosen to be a part of them. So if you are doing this study you have been chose by divine design, not random chance. His design is for your relationship with Jesus to grow to a depth of understanding you have never been to before.
In 2nd Samuel 9:1, king David asks, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Johnathan’s sake.” Then he has a conversation with a guy named Ziba (vv. 2-5) and he discovers there is someone named Miphibosheth in a place called “Lo-Debar”. So, David sent for him. I want you to see that the king sought out and reached out to a guy that was virtually on the run, trying to hide in a place whose name means “great desolation”. His desire was to bring him to the palace to sit at the king’s table, not as a slave or an outsider, but as the king’s own son.
There is a great deal of dynamic involved in the relationship between David and Mephibosheth that our culture may not understand. It was customary that when a new king rose to power, from a new family, he would kill anyone from the previous king’s family, thus eliminating any other claims to the throne. So, when David asked about “anyone who is left of the house of Saul…” it may have appeared he was making sure he had completely cleaned house of anyone else that could claim to be a rightful king. I wonder if Ziba was thinking this when he said “There is a son of Johnathan’s who is lame in both feet.” (v.3). Maybe he wanted to emphasize to David that this son of Johnathan’s was a cripple and was absolutely no threat to David.
A person that suffered from a physical handicap during this time was considered to be suffering the judgement of God. I am sure when David sent for Mephibosheth the thought that David was seeking a personal relationship with him by adopting him as his own son probably never crossed Mephibosheth’s mind. He probably just felt like he had received a death sentence. He expected to be treated as a POW at the very best or a slave for execution at worst. David did not receive him as a slave, but rather as if he were his own son. God doesn’t want you to come to him as a religious slave, but as His own child. God hates religion but is deeply and passionately in love with you. His invitation to you through this study is for you to pull up a chair at His table, maybe even sit beside Mephibosheth, and dine as His own beloved, adopted child. He wants you to dine on the most choice meal of grace and mercy. He wants you to eat with Him not as an outsider or a slave, but as His own beloved child.
He has pursued you.
He has picked you.
You are invited to eat at the King’s table.
How will you respond to His invitation?
For Further Reading:
Ezekiel 34:11 Jeremiah 31:3 Luke 15:4-6 Zephaniah 3:17
Psalm 137:7-8 1st John 4:19
For Further Thought:
- Can you remember a time when you realized you were chosen? Do you remember a time you were not chosen? Reflect on both moments and how each made you feel and try to describe the feelings.
- Can you think of someone in your life (at work, school, church or family) that seems to consistently be left on the fray? What can you do in a practical way to reach out to make them feel included? Maybe even invite them to come to this Bible Study with you next week?