“God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” William Wilberforce
“Calling is the truth that God calls us to Himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion, dynamism, and direction lived out as a response to his summons and service.” Os Guinness
“Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:33)
Lately I’ve been thinking about my “Call”, not because I’m unsatisfied, but because (despite trials) I feel alive in where the Lord has called me. A book that I’ve been reading is actually entitled The Call by Os Guinness. The reading has been very timely for where God has me, and it got me thinking about the dynamics of what life looks like right now. For instance, the question that we often have to filter through our priorities is: “where am I putting my energy?” When we look at the prospect of adding something to our already busy schedule, the reality is that something’s got to give. Something must be set down if we’re going to pick something up. Otherwise we run the risk of our life focus becoming hazy.
So many people go their whole life without finding their “Calling”. And when I say “Calling” I don’t mean the Protestant distortion (as Guinness puts it) that limits it to a secular lifetime vocation, and I also don’t mean it in the Catholic distortion (Guinness again) that limits it to a purely spiritually segregated existence saved for the spiritually elite monks, nuns, pastors, or full-time ministry people. Rather, I mean it in the strong conviction of how I have felt the Lord “mark” me in fulfilling a purpose in my lifetime. Guinness wrote:
“Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by Him, to Him, and for Him. First and foremost we are called to Someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Mongolia.
Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for Him.” (Guinness, 2003, p. 31)
The number one priority for us (Marissa and me) is to know the Caller (Jesus); then our secondary calling is what He has called us to do (minister on the Apache reservation). If we put the cart before the horse, then things become unmanageable and unbalanced. With the proper focus we can endure the trials that come with our unique Call.
As Marissa and I have been having a sabbatical/vacation in Atlanta, GA, over the past couple weeks, it has been a time of healing, reflection, spending time in the prayer room, spending time with friends, and even getting some rest 🙂 The message of being consumed by the Caller of our calling has been paramount for me. True, we’ve given ourselves over to the mission of encouraging, challenging, being available for, and loving the Apache teens. Any part-time work we do is to finance our Calling. My “spare” time is also spent working on a sociology degree. (A task I’ve been very passionate about, out of my hunger to articulate our Call to Native America) I am finding that the more passionate I am about my Caller, the more driven I am to stand in what He has called me to do. In September we took a group of our teens to the One Thing conference that came to Phoenix, and a great point that one of the speakers made was: “Lovers will always out work, out labor, and out serve workers.” This rings especially true for us in this season, where we are passionate about our Caller, our Calling, and this adventure that our Lord has invited us into.
Reference:
Guinness, Os.(2003). The Call: Finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.