In earlier years, I didn't have much interest in God's chosen people, in fact it was more of a joke that anyone could be good enough to be God's chosen people.

Some of the people claiming to be chosen by God were just to phoney baloney going through their rituals of worship. And as I have said before, it created in me the 10 foot pole effect of getting those people away from me. 

I saw a second cousin at a Leber family picnic much older than the rest of us, but he was playing softball with us kids when I was about 15-16 years old.  After we had all laughed and worn ourselves out with play, he stood in the bright flashing light in the trees that surrounded us by Storm Lake.  He testified to this Jesus Christ who had given his life joy, and I thought what he said rang true, just not for me then.

https://biblehub.com/john/1-12.htm