Called or Chosen?

For some reason tonight my mind was flooded with questions about God's calling on people's lives. I asked a couple people and then did a lot of praying, researching, reading and thinking. I blogged as I did it so here it is...feel free to comment and add your own imput. There are still questions I have that are unanswered but I think I found the answers to the main questions that will allow me to sleep tonight. I could be very wrong on all of this so if you feel differently please comment and share your thoughts, I am still looking for the answers.


Do you ever wonder if God has called every single person to live some crazy awesome and influential life or if he only chooses certain people? Because if he does have that plan for everyone then there wouldn't be any ordinary people. And if there were no ordinary people how would you know what is extraordinary because that's how everyone lives? So does God have favorites and calls some to extraordinary lives and some to just ordinary? Or does he call everyone but only some except?

What is the difference between being called and being chosen? If only some are chosen does that mean God loves the chosen more? Does God have favorites?
Matthew 22:14 says "For many are called but few are chosen." As soon as I thought I had grasped that sentence I read it in context and now I am lost. I will come back to that later...

Who is Paul talking to/about in Romans 8:29 when it says
"For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brother and sisters. And having chosen them he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave the his glory."
Who exactly are God's people? Is it just the Israelites? Is it anyone who accepts his Son? Is he just talking to the Romans and not really to us now?

How do you tell when reading the Bible if when the writer is saying things like, I have chosen you, I have set you apart, go and do this or that; how do you know if he is talking to you particularly or if he was only talking to the people the book was originally written for?

"God has such an amazing calling on your life and he's going to use you to do things more incredible than you can imagine!"
Ever heard that before? Is that just the latest Christianese saying or do the people that say this actually know for a fact that this is true? Or maybe they are just trying to speak it into existence. I don't know about you but I can imagine some pretty crazy and incredible things. If God's call on my life involves things greater than I can imagine, along with all the other people in the world that have been told that...thats gonna be a lot of incredible callings. If everyone in the world is called to do incredible things then who are they going to impact if everyone is impacting?
If it is true and God has bigger things planned for me than I could ever imagine, why me? I'm sure there are plenty of other people in the world that want to be called to something great, want to live an extraordinary life. Why would I get chosen for that? Why can't more people experience and do the things I have gotten to experience and do and will do and will experience?

God has to call some people to greater things than others. But how is that determined? And does that mean he loves those people more? Why do those people get to have the cool callings?

Romans 9:20-21
"Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created , "Why have you made me like this?" When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn't he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?" - ouch

So is it wrong to ask God why he created you the way he did? To ask why he called you to one thing and didn't call someone else?

1 Corinthians 12:12-31 talks about the body of Christ and how it has many parts but is one body. And I think what it's saying is that just because you may be a foot and not an eye (or a soccer mom and not a missionary) doesn't mean you are not important. Because if the body didn't have feet then it wouldn't get anywhere (or if there were no soccer moms then the kids that are supposed to grow up to be missionaries would never be raised the way they need to be) In verse 17 it says that if the whole body were an eye then how would it hear? (If every Christian decided to be a missionary then how would they have support for their ministry?)

So we are all called to something. God has us all called to be a part of the body. But we can't all be the mouth or the eyes or the parts we might think are important. The real question is, can you learn to be happy with and live out to the fullest being a knee cap and not the head?
I could be wrong but I would think that if God called you to be a part of his body he would put the desire for that part in you. Maybe not at first but if you trusted him and worked at that part you would realize it's what you've wanted all along.

Romans 12:6
"In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well."

I understand a little more what Paul meant when he wrote, "How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the Lord's thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice" - Romans 11:33-34


That was thought vomit spilled out in a ridiculously long blog. I feel better getting it out though so whether you actually read all that or not at least I feel a little better lol
Now I need to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day. Another chance to try and understand this wonderfully, genuisly *yet sometimes frustratingly confusing* book that is God's Word.

zzzzzzz....

North Carolina says hello

Only about 3 weeks of 24/7 left...I feel like I've kinda spiritually checked out recently. I haven't had the same desire to read the Bible lately, I haven't thought about praying all the time, it's like I've almost forgotten God in my everyday life and I hate that. What happened to walking in the spirit and praying without ceasing and a burning desire to read the Word everyday?

I feel like now that the year is almost over I should be some super Christian leader person and have it all together but I'm not and I don't.

The way I pictured my life at 19 when I was a kid is very different than what it is now. Wow 19? That sounds so old and so young at the same time. How is that possible?
I've been thinking about this summer a lot since turning in my cadre application. I don't want to go home and get back into the everyday routine of living complacently and just getting through each day. When I go home I want all the people that knew me before I went through 24/7 to see a complete and total change. I want to be an example to all the teenagers in my church, not just the highschoolers but the college students too. I want to live differently than I did last summer.

In order to do that I need to finish these last 3 weeks strong. No checking out, no taking anything for granted, no just getting by. Make the most of every flipping opportunity!!

Wow Moments

There are moments in life that I like to call "wow" moments that happen sometimes when you just get so overwhelmed that your brain goes on total overload and you can't even put into words or thoughts what is going through your mind and you have to sit back and just say "wow" and thats all you can say.

That is what is currently going on inside my head. God has shown me so much in the last month my brain is having a hard time processing it all. It's the weirdest feeling in the world. I wish all the drug and alcohol adicts in the world could feel it because it's better than any high they could ever get from their addictions. It's a Jesus high. There are no words to describe it. It's happened to me several times since we left for Africa. I wish I could explain it but there really are no words. God is so much bigger and holier and wonderful and awesomer, even though thats not a word, than I could ever imagine or put into words. And the coolest thing is that I get to be a part of what He is doing in the world. How cool is that?!

I'm like so excited about life right now it's kind of ridiculous and I really wish I could go sit at toad suck and play guitar but I guess I'll have to settle for my living room.

Life is good

So a lot has happened since I've posted last...
Completed the dreaded IronMan. It was definitely the longest most hellish day of my life but its over. I did it. I still am unable to believe that I did it. And I look around me at all the other people that did it and I am so incredibly proud of all of us. Never in our lives would we have thought we would be able to do something like that. I would not have been able to do it without my family though. Not just my blood family but my 24/7 and new life family. My homesponsor ran probably 9 or 10 miles with me and walked 3 or so with me. Jen, Laurie's homesponsor ran/walked 3 miles with me, so did Skoog. Then at the end Monica and I finished the last 3 miles and then Melissa came back finished the last little bit with us. I am so blessed.

Then this last weekend we had survival training which was pretty cool. I learned a lot.

For some reason I'm being very ADD at the moment and trying to do like 6 things at once and getting distracted and am not accomplishing any of them. I did however just unclog my toilet which was very exciting. I wish I could say I did it by myself but I was coached by my dad on the phone the whole time. (what would I would do without that man I don't know)

I'm so glad to be here but sometimes I really wish I wasn't missing out on stuff back home. My older brother is moving out on his own, (yes he is 23 and just now moving out on his own for the first time) one of my younger brothers is in highschool now and will be learning to drive this summer. My best friend from back home is so musically and creatively gifted its not even funny and she will be moving on and doing something crazy awesome after she finishes school of worship. My church is growing and building a new building. My youth group is growing. All my friends from home are off in the real world. I know I'm supposed to be here, I just wish I could be there to see all the changes that are happening at home too. Change is a strange thing.
It comes when you least expect it and can completely turn your world upside down and you won't know what happened. If you don't pay attention you might miss it.
It definitely makes you want to savor every minute you have with the people you love and live every moment to the fullest.
There are 10 weeks left until graduation...That blows my mind to think about. It feels like I just got here but at the same time it feels like I've been here for years. I've grown and learned so much in the last 7 months its unbelievable.

Lord help me to make the most of these last 10 weeks and live every single second to the absolute fullest not taking anything for granted.

So much for sleeping in...

My first chance to sleep in, in over a week and I wake up at 5 30 and kinda drift in and out of sleep till 7 30 when I was unable to sleep at all. Gotta love it when that happens...So I got some laundry done, finally got to look through most of the pictures from mexico, and did some other stuff on the computer. But now it is 10 and I need to run 12 miles today, blah.

I wish there was some way I could make myself enjoy running. Or at least not loath it. There really are not many things I would not rather do than run. I would rather hike pinnacle in the freezing rain without a jacket 12 times than run 12 miles. Oh the Ironman is going to be lots of fun...12 days...holy crap. But that also means 13 days until I can drink coffee! I'll just focus on that for all 140 miles. After this I can drink coffee! After this I can drink coffee! I know I'm pathetic its ok I've accepted it. I'm just tired of being tired all the time. I look dead, I feel dead, it's no bueno.

Well I've been putting it off long enough, I need to suck it up and go run 12 miles.

Beautiful Day

For some reason this fast is harder than any other fast. Harder than the "c" word fast, harder than fasting all food even. I never realized how much caffeine I put in me every day until now. Plus working blends doesn't help. It's ok though, I'll get through this, Jesus can be my coffee!


It's so nice outside. It's days like today that make me want to climb a mountain then sit at the top overlooking everything and play guitar. I will do that someday...

But for now I will have to settle for running Salem trail with my ipod.

Not able to sleep

There is so much I want to say I don't even know where to start...There's not even enough room or time to write everything so I will try to narrow it down to the most important...

God has shown me so much in the last few months its insane. These last three weeks in Mexico especially. There are so many things in life that you know in your head but you don't really know them in your heart. For instance: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can be a slut *in a drama people, don't get any ideas*, eat more food than should be humanly possible to consume in one day, pray for people that don't even speak my language, tell my testimony in front of lots and lots of people, be confident in who God made me to be, and completely trust God with absolutely everything. You know what else? Just try to wrap your mind around this. The God that created the universe, the God that spoke mountains into existence, the God that is so big he is everywhere at the same time loves me, and chose me to be in this program and to go to Mexico and tell people about Him. Out of all the people in the world, I got to do that. Dude.
Have you just sat there and tried to wrap your mind around how much God loves you lately? I think that too often we forget exactly what that love entails. Too often we just know it in our head.
We wrote down goals today and one of mine is to never forget and just know in my head that God loves me, but to always know it in my heart. To never get used to the fact that the God that created this entire world and everyone in it loves me. Me, ZuZu Ford. Every time I think about that, like really think about it, I have this major wow moment and I want to go tell everyone so that they can realize the same thing.

So these are just a few things and when you read most of them you're like, ya duh I've known that my whole life but there is a big difference between knowing something and knowing something. That is something I'm learning, to never let yourself get used to the things of God to where they don't amaze you anymore and they just seem normal.

There is so much more I want to say but now I need to sleep. I will write more later.

Hopefully soon I'll have pictures I can put up too.
Later
Zu