Two Elizabeths and Me

I wonder what Queen Elizabeth thinks about being queen.  She has known all her life that she would reign in privilege.  It is part of who she is, but she didn't earn it.  She walked into it, inevitably, with every step, every breath.  All she had to do to be queen is to live.  No one ever expected her to do anything else.

And how about Elizabeth Taylor?

She had to have been strikingly beautiful from birth, her famous eyes causing gasps from the minute she opened them.  When did she discover that she had been given talent as well as beauty?  She did nothing to deserve either, but lived in the grace of them all her life.

When am I going to understand that I am no less privileged, no less blessed than either of them?  In fact, I am more.

I was chosen by the living God to be His own.

You did not choose me, but I chose you...John 15:16

God saved me and I worship Him.  God knows me and I know Him.  God loves me and I love Him.  He grants me this as a sublime privilege in this world.

After all, at the end of time, everyone will know and recognize God.  No one will be able to deny Him.  Now, however, He does not grant that vision to everyone.  He grants that vision, that knowledge, that salvation, to whom He chooses by His goodness alone, and by it we see Him while still in this world.


I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.--Psalm 27:13

You have saved me so that I can worship you.  I do not get to worship without salvation because with salvation comes knowledge and knowledge of God inevitably drives me to my knees.  If I truly worship, I am truly saved.  If I am truly saved, I truly worship.

I am either all in or all out.

I live, like the Elizabeths, as beauty and queen completely or not at all.  If God has granted His favor, I do not need to hide it and pretend that I am like those to whom He has not.  I need to grab all of it or reject it all.  I cannot say that I know and love God and live in condemnation.  I must be all God's or be nothing.

God designated me for this from the beginning of time.  I need to take hold of it.

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.--Philippians 3:12b