The Longing in Me: A Study on the Life of DavidSample

Longing to Be Chosen

Everyone longs to feel significant and special. The longing to be chosen, to feel significant, is profoundly primal. Yet even though God’s Word is filled with more than 3,000 promises that we are loved and chosen, when we walk through a hard season, we still want tangible signs that God is going to come through for us.

The problem is that while we know that God loves us, we can’t see him with our eyes or feel His arms around us or hear His audible voice telling us that we are loved. So what do we do? We look for that kind of love and acceptance in someone else.

In the Bible, we find the Israelites did just this when they demanded the prophet Samuel give them a king. They were looking for a person to protect them rather than God, and they wanted to be like all the other nations around them. When they saw Saul, he seemed to be the kind of man they wanted. And outwardly, he did look like a kingly choice.

But God had other plans—a different choice. He chose David, the youngest of his brothers and a seemingly insignificant person. Yet God saw his heart. God had heard the psalms that David sang over the flock. He had seen his courage as David risked his life to snatch a lamb from the paw of a bear and a young goat from a lion. He discerned David’s heart and knew that this teenage boy who sang in the darkness and fought in the light would be the one he would anoint as king of Israel.

I know personally what it is like to look to others to fill a deep need for belonging. You see, as a young girl, I lost my father to suicide. Without that healthy relationship in place, I grew up feeling uncovered, exposed, and unprotected. That unmet need in my childhood to be chosen became a driving force in my life. It was the perfect prelude to desperate choices I would later make in life.

If I could step back in time and talk to myself, I would say, “Sheila you are chosen. You’re chosen by the One who will never unchoose you. You’re loved when the crowd cheers and when the lights go out and they all go home.” But I can’t step back. I often find myself at the same place again, each time with a little more understanding.

Today, I know that it just takes time and some commitment to build understanding and begin thinking a new way. As a daughter of the Most High God, everything can change! The God of the universe has already chosen me—and you—and he says, “You are mine!”

Change means reminding yourself daily that you belong to God, and that he loves you, and that he chose you to be his daughter. As you grow in your understanding of God’s relentless love for you, the fruit of change will begin to grow in your life. As you grow in love for you heavenly Father, you will find that he will satisfy all your longings for significance in this world.

Respond

In what ways might the longing in your heart be an expression of your desire to be seen and chosen?

In what ways are your deep needs or longings driving your choices?

How would you describe your awareness of God’s longing for you? How would you describe your awareness of your longing for God?