Entertainer Garrison Keilor recalls the childhood pain of being chosen last for the baseball teams.

The captains are down to their last grudging choices: a slow kid for catcher, someone to stick out in right field where nobody hits it. They choose the last ones two at a time—"you and you"—because it makes no difference. And the remaining kids—the scrubs , the excess—they deal for us as handicaps. "If I take him, then you gotta take him," they say.

Sometimes I go as high as sixth, usually lower. But just once I'd like Darrel to pick me first and say, "Him! I want him! The skinny kid with the glasses and the black shoes. You, c'mon!" But I've never been chosen with much enthusiasm.

Did you ever think about the fact that you are so valuable to God he chose you early—with enthusiasm. "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Ephesians 1:4).