God Is Calling

The following appeared in the June, 2012 issue of the Wheatland Parish newsletter.

            I want to expand a little on something I wrote last month.  In an article on what I would say to high school graduates, the first thing I wrote was “find a way to make a living doing something you love to do.”

            The reason I think this is so important is that God created each one of us as a special, unique individual.  Each of us has things we love to do, things we’re indifferent about, and things we really don’t like doing at all.  What those things are will be different for each of us, but we all have them.

            Those things we love to do are a gift from God.  God gave us a love for those things because God wants us to use them in God’s service.

            Let me give you an example.  As you know, I became a pastor at age forty-seven.  When I decided to go into ministry, I wondered if I should make some changes in my life.  I wondered if I should stop watching so many ball games, and instead use that time to read religious books.  I wondered if I should stop listening to sports talk radio and to the oldies station and start listening to religious music.  I wondered if I should stop kidding around the way I like to do, and not tell the silly jokes I like to tell.

            After I thought about it, and prayed about it, I decided the answer was no.  When God called me into the ministry, God called me.  God knew who I was when God called me.  If God had wanted somebody else, God would’ve called somebody else.  God called me as me, and God wants me to use those interests and those things I love to do in God’s service.

Now, understand that any gift can be misused, even gifts that come from God.  If I use my love of sports to connect with people and to learn and communicate some life lessons, then I’m using that gift in God’s service.  If I use my love of sports as an excuse to sit on the couch and watch ball games when I should be working, I’m not using that gift in God’s service.  If I do that, I’m misusing the gift that God gave me.

            The thing is that God calls each one of us to do something.  God has called you, just as surely as God has called me.  God may not have called you to be a pastor, but God has still called you to do something.  God can call us to be farmers, mechanics, bankers, salesmen, teachers, clerks, anything.  Anything that God has given you a love for, anything about which you become passionate, is a calling from God.  God wants you to use that calling in God’s service. 

            The thing that each of us needs to do is to look at the gifts God has given us, the interests and passions that God has placed in our hearts, and find ways to use them in God’s service.  For some of us, that may mean making our living serving God.  For others of us, that may mean finding ways to turn our way of making a living into a way to serve God.  For still others, that may mean finding ways to turn our hobbies into ways to serve God.

            God called you.  God called you to be you, just as God called me to be me.  God has put something, maybe several things, into our hearts, things that we love to do.  If we follow where God is leading, and use those gifts God has given us in God’s service, God will reward us in all kinds of wonderful and unexpected ways.