{"id":168,"date":"2009-09-10T15:44:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T19:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/pick-me-lord"},"modified":"2009-09-10T15:44:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-10T19:44:00","slug":"pick-me-lord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2009\/09\/pick-me-lord.html","title":{"rendered":"Pick me, Lord!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"at-xid-6a00d83524c19a69e20120a561d601970b alignright\" style=\"margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;\" alt=\"100_2602\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/6a00d83524c19a69e20120a561d601970b-320wi.jpg\" \/> &#8220;If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it&#8221;<\/em> (Genesis 4:7 NIV).<\/p>\n<p>Watching my nephews (Ryan #12 and Michael in blue) play football earlier this week reminded me of my younger days&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pick me!&#8221; I shouted at my friend, Gordon, as he surveyed the boys lined up and waving their hands for selection.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I pick Combs.&#8221; Gordon said, while pointing me out.<\/p>\n<p>I loved playing football during afternoon recess in the fifth grade. But I hated the time of picking teams. It was nerve-wracking. You never knew when you might be chosen last. And to be chosen last was basically to be rejected all together.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;OK. I guess we&#8217;ll take Combs.&#8221; The boy picking might say as he realized that I was the last remaining team applicant.<span id=\"fck_dom_range_temp_1252609283328_815\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I had been the &#8220;last guy&#8221; before and that&#8217;s why I was always happy to see my friend Gordon (who was a popular athelete) as one of the team captains. Gordon would always choose me first, even though we both knew that I wasn&#8217;t one of the top draft picks. He would choose me because we were friends, not because of my football skills (At 4&#8242; 10&#8243; and 75 pounds, I wasn&#8217;t exactly the guy you wanted blocking for you).<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m glad that Jesus is my friend. I don&#8217;t have the skill set to &#8220;master&#8221; sin and live a life that pleases God, but Jesus does. I don&#8217;t have to be anxious about whether God will choose me or not. God is pleased with His Son. If I am in Christ, then God is pleased with me and accepts me too.<\/p>\n<p>This makes me want to respond the way the prophet Isaiah did\u00a0when he had a vision that the Lord was picking teams, Isaiah replied, &#8220;Here am I. Send me!&#8221; (Isaiah 6:8)<\/p>\n<p>And so, I too\u00a0lift my hand and shout, &#8220;Pick me, Lord! Pick me!&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it&#8221; (Genesis 4:7 NIV). Watching my nephews (Ryan #12 and Michael in blue) play football earlier this week reminded me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"location":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}