PATO, PATO, GONSO

Our family runs a non-profit missions ministry called Evident Ministries.  We host ministry teams for a week of Team Ministry twice per year - in December/January and July.  Our ministry teams participate in a week of Team Ministry as they reach out to groups in Women's, Children's, Sport's, and evening worship service ministry.

Our Children's Ministry teams quickly learn that children in Mexico do not spend all their time playing video games and staring at smart phones.  

Children in Mexico, like most third world countries, spend a great deal of their time, playing games with each other outside.  One of the games our Children's Ministry teams play with children in Mexico is Duck, Duck, Goose...or as it is called in Mexico, Pato, Pato, Gonso.  

As you likely already know, the game of Duck, Duck, Goose involves children sitting in a circle where the child who is "it" walks around the outside of the circle, touching each child on the head as they say, "Duck" for each child.  Randomly, they will choose a child who, when they touch their head, they will instead say, "Goose".  At that point, the child who was chosen as the "goose" will jump up and chase the person who was "it" around the circle and back to their empty spot in the circle.  If the one who is "it" makes it back without being tagged, the "goose" becomes "it".  If they are tagged by the "goose" before sitting down, they remain "it" and go again.

Here's the thing.  The truth is that every child in the circle hopes to become the "goose" so they can jump up and maybe get to be "it".  As a result, each child will sit up straight and attempt to stand out in the crowd by maybe sitting taller or somehow triggering a "goose" when they are tapped.  

Too often, we are playing "Duck, Duck, Goose" with God.  We are trying to sit up straight to get His attention.  

We are trying to act right and to behave in public in order to impress God.  We think, even if only subconsciously, that we must surely need to impress God with our good behavior, or He will not notice us.  This kind of stinking-thinking belongs to the world.  It does not belong in the life of a Christian.  You won't find this anywhere within God's Biblical standard for living.

Can I just tell ya something?  You cannot impress God.  There is nothing you can do which will ever cause God to love you any more OR less than He loved you in the moment of your salvation.  This is not a feeling.  This is a Biblical fact and truth.  God already chose to love you and not because of how well you behave in public.  It was the result of His great mercy and love for His own creation.

Prayer -
Father, please forgive me for ever thinking my good or bad behavior will influence Your love, grace, or mercy for me.  Your Word says nothing I do will ever influence those things in either direction.  I don't deserve those things, cannot earn them, and could never repay You for them.  Amen.

#Missions #Evident #MásDeTi

For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift ​— ​ not from works, so that no one can boast. 1 -- Ephesians 2:8-10 (CSB)

UNCONDITIONALLY CHOSEN & LOVED

Remember as a kid being part of choosing teams in P.E. class?  The P.E. coach would select a couple of team captains who were most likely the two most athletic students in the class.  Then, one by one, they would go back and forth choosing the members of their team for whatever sport the class was getting ready to play.

Subject to the sport to be played, the team captains would choose first those they believed would be likely to benefit their team the most.  It also meant that those of us who were the least athletic would be chosen last.  Regardless of where you may have fallen in the selection process, it would have left you with a feeling about where you landed AND about where those who were chosen first and last landed.  

In this model, some are more "chosen" than others.

I have used this illustration many times when speaking to groups.  I usually suggest we try it ourselves or at least ask the group to consider what it would be like if we did.  What if we had all the men in the room stand up, select two captains, and have them choose teams for a football game...?  Who would be chosen first?  Who would be chosen last?  Why?  How do you think those would have been chosen last would feel?

The less "chosen" you feel in that process, the more likely you are to start thinking and maybe even saying out loud:

• Who wants to play anyway?
• This game is dumb. 
• I don't want to play.
• My ankle hurts...I don't feel well... I'll just watch...

That is a natural human response when we feel others are chosen to participate and we are something less than chosen.

Can I just tell ya something?  We are not likely going to genuinely and humbly surrender to or faithfully serve in obedience a God we do not really believe loves unconditionally.  In the very same way God came looking for Adam and Eve in the Garden, you better believe that, oh hallelujah, God came looking for you.  When you are feeling something less than chosen or less than unconditionally loved by God, read all of Ephesians 1 aloud to yourself. Each time the Apostle Paul uses a pronoun such as our, us, or we, replace it with my, me, and I.

Prayer - 
Father, Your Word tells me I am unconditionally chosen and loved by the Creator of the Universe not because of anything I have done or can do for You.  This truth sits at the center of my hope in Jesus.  Help me to lean hard into these Biblical truths in my day to day and to live in such as a way that others are asking me about my hope.

#Missions #Evident #MásDeTi

For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.  -- Ephesians 1:4 (CSB)

For he chose ME in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.