Callings VII

“…for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” Phil. 4:11-12

“The called man/woman of God is encouraged to embrace difficulty, danger, humility, or success, no matter what might befall them in their calling.” With these few and simple words, the Puritans put an iron rod of discipline into that warm, fuzzy feeling we call our life leading, professional inclination, or God’s call on our life. It is the part of hearing from God regarding a life vocation that is easily ignored or conveniently forgotten. Somehow we tend to focus on the self-fulfillment phase of discovering God’s leading in our lives. I talked to a man this week who takes young people camping and hiking as a full time outdoor recreation director. How thrilling it must be to do what one naturally loves to do and actually be paid to do it. And there is truth there that great joy can be found when operating in one’s giftedness for the glory of God.

But the other side of that picture is that God neither gifts us nor calls us for the joys of self-fulfillment. His callings are for service and His purposes. Self-actualization as a goal in life is perhaps one of the most cruel and poisonous philosophies spread about during my lifetime. It leads inexorably to the bizarre conclusion that, no matter what, God wants us to be happy. From there, all sorts of chaos proceeds.

When teaching our children about seeking their calling in life, the Divine Surgeon General’s warnings need to be firmly in place as well. Warning: your calling in life could entail calculated preparation and tedious study. Warning: your calling in life may entail great danger and opposition. Warning: your calling in life could entail loss and sacrifice. Warning: your calling in life could lead to a life of humble poverty. Who knew God’s call on his life more clearly than the Apostle Paul? And yet, he experienced homelessness, hardship, imprisonments, beatings, shipwreck, nakedness, peril, and ultimately an untimely death. His calling was not about self-actualization but about self-denial. This is a critical factor in following God’s callings for we do not measure the will of God or the validity of our calling by the degree of familial comfort, worldly success, or personal happiness we experience. Politicians are savagely attacked, pastors are beleaguered, teachers are tested, mechanics get bloody knuckles, mothers lose sleep, and missionaries are occasionally and casually martyred. When we know we are in His will, we will endure all things for the sake of the mission. This is what kept Noah working while the world laughed. It enabled David to face Goliath. It filled Shadrach and his friends with courage though the furnace was heated seven times hotter. And it will fill us ordinary folk with the steel we need to survive the rigors of our callings, no matter how strenuous, no matter what the opposition.

And last of all, there needs to be one more important caution. Warning: all degrees of success or fame are equally from God’s hand and are no cause for pride or self-satisfaction. Success can be even more deadly than tribulation. How many have fallen in the midst of personal triumph? Far too many. “The called man/woman of God will equally bear good and evil success as God shall dispense to him. If God prosper him, he had learned not to be puffed up, and if he should be exposed to want, he could do it without murmuring” (John Cotton). May we hide this wisdom in our hearts and those of our children.

Callings VI

“For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.” -I Cor. 7:22

“The called man/woman of God, in serving God, serves men, and in serving men, serves God.”

In that simple phrase, we can sum up so much of what the early Puritans thought of the concept of a calling in life. It captures the spirit of Scripture so beautifully which says that inasmuch as we have served the least of our brethren, we have done it unto Him (Matt. 25:40). Our desire to serve God is not to be bound up in lives of cloistered penance and prayer. It is to be lived out in the daily market place where we interact with neighbors, friends, and rank strangers. The banker is to serve his customers as one who seeks to encourage and enable parents to provide shelter for their families, to aid businessmen in developing new jobs and opportunities, and to provide means of savings and investments for the future dreams of child and adult alike. Banking should never be seen as a means of personal enrichment and power. The clerk in a convenience store is there to assist the harried traveler with gas and a sticky bun or whatever to make life for the wayfarer more, dare we say it, “convenient” and to protect the assets of the owner. It is all about service to others who could always use a smile and encouraging word to go with that newspaper or cup of coffee. It is not about exerting the absolute minimum effort while counting down the minutes until shift change or foraging freebies at the expense of the company. The professional athlete dedicates his abilities and efforts to the success of his team and uses his public profile as a role model of good character for the greater good of his community. It is not about personal glory and grandstanding or a means of extorting larger and larger salaries to consume upon himself in gratuitous displays of freedom and excess.

When we and our children understand this, our perspective towards our jobs, towards developing our gifts and abilities should be touched, affected, and changed. We come up from the waters of baptism new creatures, regenerated to newness of life. We need to baptize our dreams of work and wealth, of study and education, of success and fame in the cleansing waters of humility and service. We serve God by serving men. Our work, our talents, and our abilities are means of worship to our maker. It is our reasonable service.

In so doing, we lay down our dreams of glory, our preoccupation with personal advancement, and our predisposition to seek positions of status. And the amazing thing is that when we do this, we find that the pressure to succeed that was driving us with such cruel force is gone. Contentment with our station in life is attainable. We discover joy in our labors that we never knew were there, and we can actually draw strength from the most menial of tasks instead of being drained by them.

Perhaps I am becoming a bit repetitious and tiresome in making this point. I risk it because it is the hinge upon which so much turns. To see work as worship, to see our calling in life as a means of service rather than a means to glory is a means of great freedom from the chains of this world’s values. It also restores the dignity of each person as worthy servants before the Lord no matter what tasks they perform in life. There will be those who will have great reward in heaven for the cups of cold water they have dispensed as sure as there will be those who have operated great levers of power and wealth in this life who will find themselves suddenly ashamed. May you find joy in your work this week, parent and child alike.

Callings V

“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it….” -Ps. 127:1

Believe it or not, there comes a time in the lives of most young people when they discover that they have particular talents and abilities that distinguish them from others their age. Adolescence is a search for value and self worth, and the first steps are generally filled with faltering, timidity, and doubt. But eventually, young people are pleasantly surprised when, to their amazement, they possess a skill or knack for an activity, a sport, an academic field, or a hobby that sets them apart. I remember prowling about our farm buildings as a teenager, armed with a .22 rifle, hunting sparrows. These birds were a plague upon our barns with their incessant nest building that in turn attracted insects and provided a breeding ground for disease. I had free license to use them as target practice at will. They presented a small and challenging target to my simple, open-sighted, single-shot rifle. Many more bullets missed than hit their mark. But one day a friend drove in as I was on one of my wandering safaris, and as we talked, a flock of sparrows flew into a large, barren tree some 150 ft. away. My friend noted them and challenged me to take a shot. It was a long one for such a target, but I had to try. I laid the rifle down across the roof of his car and drew a careful bead. The gun went off, and a sparrow fell straight down onto the chicken house roof. No one was more amazed than I. But I remember the glowing pride I felt as my friend made exclamation after exclamation regarding my skilled aim. There was joy and pride that I actually might have an ability that was just a bit above the average teenager. I later went on to spend four years on the college rifle team sharpening that skill first developed as a non-descript farm boy.

While shooting a rifle had little applicable life consequences, there were other things that did. I remember a compelling interest in science, my first success as a writer, and the thrill of participating in youth ministry. All were early precedents for the life I have lived. While the act of discovery is an important step in seeking our calling in life, there was one step I lacked and omitted out of sheer ignorance. While it may not have seemed like much at the time, I feel it may have been far more critical than I care to believe. When we do get a sense of the gifts and abilities that God has given to us, it is important to dedicate those gifts and resultant callings to God (Rom. 12:1), asking and relying upon Him to “quicken and sharpen” those abilities (Ps. 127:1-2), not relying on our own strength (Pro. 3:5-6).

Why is this important? First of all, it gives the glory to God. Scripture makes clear over and over that the gifts of the Spirit are given for the proper functioning of the body of Christ. So, too, with natural gifts. It is not about us. When we become self-absorbed with an ability and how it magnifies ourselves, we become hard to live with, and the gift itself can be poisoned and become poison to our souls. The greater the gift and the more public the calling, the greater the danger. I believe this selfish preoccupation greatly complicates our psychological ability to cope with the pressures of juggling a talent, a calling, an ego, and the expectation to “succeed.” When we dedicate our calling to God, we recognize Him as the giver of every good gift as given for the purpose of complementing society as a whole. We become grateful for our part to play, and we learn to depend upon Him to breathe life and wisdom into our life work. It becomes no longer a matter of our own status but translates our gifts into a matter of stewardship and service. That perspective can change everything and fire our hearts to pursue excellence for His glory, not ours.

No Regrets

“But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him: for he shall go over before this people” -Deut. 3:28

I do intend to finish my series on “callings” but life keeps interrupting. This time it is the death of an old friend. I wrote an article last year telling about my friend, Glenn, who I had known since second grade. We were an odd couple; me, the child from Sunday school and he, the wild child. Our odyssey of friendship continued over the years to the point where he called about 15 months ago and told me of his bout with cancer and new found faith in Jesus. It must have been difficult for this life-long atheist to acknowledge his error, but he stumbled his way to faith as best he could. I supported him in that as best I could. It was a topic of frequent conversation in my house as to when I should visit him up in Illinois once more before something happened. But busy schedules and hopeful remission reports always managed to put it on the back burner.

Last month, another friend sent me a newspaper clipping telling about the sale of the bulk of Glenn’s 70 acre, non-descript farm to a parks conservancy for $1.2 million dollars. He had bought the property years before when no one wanted it. I was now the friend of a millionaire. I knew it would not change his lifestyle any. He did not even own a TV. I just had to call him and kid him about being the first millionaire on our old block. His voice was weak from another dose of radiation. The cancer was back. Nevertheless, I congratulated him, and he told me it was already spent. He had set it all up in trust funds for his children. The irony was rich. Average working man struggles whole life to make do and get ahead. Gains million dollar windfall and faces death in same month. It was the kind of picture that jars the conscience of anyone nursing even the whiff of material values. So what is the really important legacy we leave? What are we striving for? What goals have we fixed our hearts upon? Glenn always appreciated the humor of situations like that. I know he must have had a good laugh signing over the checks. His gallows sense of humor had never left him … until last week.

In finishing up our phone conversation a couple of weeks ago, he confessed he didn’t know how much longer he could hang on. His goals were largely accomplished, and the struggle was intensifying. I told him to persist a little longer; that I wanted to see him one more time before he died. He agreed. I hung up the phone and started to make plans to travel north over spring break. I wrote him to tell him so on one of those sarcastic get well cards, the kind he would have liked. I enclosed a CD with a song I wanted him to hear. It was a call to praise God every morning, in the bad times and the good. Getting a small package in the mail is always clumsy for me for it meant a trip to the post office. And then there was the holiday. So finally, last Wednesday, it started on its way north. It must have arrived on Saturday. His caretaker picked up his mail for him and found his body Sunday morning. He had ended his struggle by his own hand. My package had gone unopened.

My mind went back to a Bible study just last Friday evening. “So how do you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit?” Not very well, I guess. The promptings, the delays, the slackness of hand, all haunt me now. Hours lost when hope hung by a thread. Another reminder in my life to listen to those quiet leadings now instead of later. Flowers for the living, “I love you’s” while we can, simple touches when we are led, and encouragement rendered out of instant obedience all contribute to a life of no regrets. I’m sorry, Glenn.