Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2019

CHAPEL NOTES Beloved by God The following is an excerpt from a February 12, 2019, chapel presentation by Andrew Peterson. Listen to his full remarks at cedarville.edu/chapel . I confess, a mighty fear of irrelevance drove me to this vocation. A pressing anxiety that unless you looked back at me with a smile and a nod and said, “Oh, I see you; you exist, and we’re glad you showed up,” I might just wither away and die. That’s not exactly a noble reason to fling your creations into the world, but it’s a decent place to start. After that, the Lord can redeem your impulse for self- preservation by easing you toward love, which is never about self. You have to climb out from under the bushel and share your light with those around you. You have to believe that you’re precious to the King of creation and not just a waste of space. You and I are anything but irrelevant. Don’t let the enemy tell you anything different. We all bear God’s image. We’re walking temples of the Spirit, bashful brides of Christ, living stones, a grand house as holy and as precious as anything else in the universe. Who do I think I am, anyway? We need not look anywhere but to the eyes of our Savior for our true identity, an identity that is profoundly complex, unfathomably deep as the sea. And yet can be boiled down to one little word: beloved. That’s it. That’s why it’s so silly and so perilous to use your gifting to clothe yourself with meaning. Those clothes will never quite fit. Do you see how God redeemed and continues to redeem the broken and selfish motives that drove me here? How all those fears that bang around in my head are gathered, sifted like wheat, and then turned into something better than self-expression, self-preservation? I’ll probably always be self-conscious. I have to fight it in the familiar territory of selfishness until the Holy Spirit w i n n o w s m y w o r k into something loving and lovable. I ’ m no l ong e r s u r p r i s ed b y my capacity for self-doubt, but I’ve learned that the only way to victory is to lose myself, to surrender to sacredness, which is safer than insecurity. I have to accept the fact that I’m beloved by God. Andrew Peterson is a Dove Award-nominated singer- songwriter who has produced 11 studio albums, with his most recent, Resurrection Letters Vol. 1 , released March 2018. He is also the author of the The Wingfeather Saga , which has been released as an animated short film. You and I are anything but irrelevant. Don’t let the enemy tell you anything different. Watch Chapel on Your Smartphone or Tablet With CU Chapel+ Livestream chapel and access other Cedarville videos on demand with the CU Chapel+ app. Learn more at cedarville.edu/cuChapelPlus .