At the beginning of this reflective season of Lent, this blog pondered how one accepts God’s invitation to intimacy.  It explored reasons we pause at the threshold of intimacy and ways to navigate the spiritual obstacles that get in the way of intimacy with God.  But returning to the initial question, after navigating the obstacles, what do we actually do to choose intimacy?

Curtis Almquist suggests, in a Lenten sermon he gave five years ago, that God has chosen us first, and so the better question might be how do we respond to our chosenness.  Here is the wisdom he shared then:

We hear in this gospel appointed for today [John 5:19-26] the recurring reminder that we are “chosen,” chosen persons by God. “You did not choose me, but I chose you,”