Becoming the Beloved, I: Taken

You're nine years old, standing on cracked blacktop. Two captains are picking teams. Names get called one by one, and the line of kids gets thinner. You try to look like you don't care. Soon it's you and one other kid, and a captain shrugs and says, “Fine, I'll take this one.” Grown-up versions of that moment are everywhere: the email that begins “Thank you for your interest,” the friend group that formed without you, the promotion that went to someone else. Each one teaches the same theory, that being chosen depends on how we measure up.

Nouwen's chapter Taken takes on that theory. He says it matters to become the Beloved, letting belovedness take flesh in everything we think, say, and do, and that this is different from mere psychological self-awareness. He gives the Spirit's movement in us a fourfold shape: taken, blessed, broken, given. The first word, taken, means being chosen by God. He suggests remembering that the world lies about us while the truth is that we are God's chosen child, then looking for the people and places where that truth gets spoken, and being grateful for being chosen.

Now put the blacktop next to Ephesians 1:4: God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world.” Before the foundation of the world. On the playground, picking happens after everyone's been watched, after the dropped passes and the slow laps. Paul says God's choosing came before anyone ran a lap. Nobody's speed was in the file. Verse 5 gives the reason: “In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.” The motive is love, not a scouting report. And verse 6 says where it all rests: God “has blessed us in the Beloved.”

There's one more difference. On the blacktop, every choice leaves somebody behind. Nothing in this paragraph pictures a last kid left standing. Paul keeps saying “us,” as if a family is being gathered, not a roster trimmed.

That old playground scene often lives on inside us as a rule: I'm only wanted if I'm useful. Nouwen's suggestion is practical. Don't just argue with the rule. Go where the truth is being said. Who in your life says it without asking you to earn it? Where do you feel it, in a certain pew, a kitchen table, a walk in the woods?

If being passed over was part of neglect, bullying, or abuse, it's wise to bring those memories to a counselor or pastor, not to carry them alone.