Highly, highly recommended...

Very few books have caused me to stop and question myself like this one! I needed to. Very appreciated and corrective.

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Finished a thought

Here...

My search for a calling

Finding a calling has always been a particular struggle for me. I know of many who can identify but a few who don't... I am trying to learn from those who are walking faithful to their call.

When I use the word call, I realize of course that some people have no idea what I'm talking about, whereas some understand immediately. "Call" to me has a couple of facets. First a call always identifies a life purpose. To get to the end and have lived with meaning. A second layer to that is that is that it often can be attached to a career or vocation.

When I was 5 I wanted to be a NFL player and at 15 a missionary pilot and I knew without a doubt what I vocationally wanted to do with life. Of course, I was a terrible athlete, and God had other ideas. When I was 30, I knew again... But God again has other plans or timing.

What I've realized is that it is often in my pride that I assume I know the best plan for my life. We are created for one purpose. That is to be beacons of light, salt of the earth, God glorifiers now and through eternity. When I decide what the best plan for my life is and am unwilling to let it go, I show my self to be proud. I classify myself with those in Jas. 4:13-17.

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

I guess the hard part for me to deal with came in when life seems to start falling apart. Dreams get pried away one at a time. Abilities begin eroding (or at least temporarily fading).

How are we to find a calling at this point? Simply put, this calls for a return to the basics. What is the calling of all Christians? To be salt, light, glorifiers, and worshipers. Perhaps you're in a time of "calling confusion". We can find joy and calling in returning to these basics.

My hope for this time God has our family in is that as each door that I would love to pursue closes, I have found peace in one immediate calling:

I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. - Rev. 4:8

And because of this, I can say with Job...

I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God;
I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me! - Job 19:25-27

I found peace in walking through extended life suffering BECAUSE God is the One who ordains and ordered my path. He opened and closed the doors ahead of me. My calling for this season is to glorify Him through all possible means at my disposal. This calling will last through the rest of my time here on earth which is as James says "a mist." I'm in my calling and at peace. Now to be faithful...

When life is easy and all goes along as you planned it's seems easy to "go along" with "God's calling." Perhaps it is truly God's calling, I'm not criticizing those who find themselves on a "easy path."

God may call us to a path that is not the one we would naturally choose. In fact, He has as Mark 8:34b-35 says so well,

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Chan observes, "Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers."

My challenge to you folks is that following God's call will be harder than mine as it entails more discernment and care not to stumble over the many temptations that can entangle you on the race.