Callings

The book of Hebrews (chapter 11) tells us, By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to leave his homeland. Remember, he was in his 80’s when he and Sara first left home. And they set out, not knowing exactly where they were going — only that God was nudging them, prompting them, calling them.

This being called and sent out is a common theme all throughout the scriptures. We’re called to step out in faith. We’re called to do the next right thing. We’re called to follow Christ… And we don’t always know where that calling, where that journey will take us…

For myself, I think about the year I spent teaching high school in rural Jamaica. I remember my first week there, asking a neighbor when the next trash pickup would happen. Seems like a fair question, right? And he looked at me like I was crazy. “Nobody here coming to pick up after your garbage mon.” I had a trash bag in my hand and he took it from me and carried it over to the edge of a ravine. He wound it up and flung it down over the edge. I looked down and there was trash everywhere. My heart just hurt. Later, he informed me that I could burn the paper. The chickens eat the scrap food. “But the plastic,” he said, “you’re on your own.” 

Over the course of the year, I also learned to do wash by hand. I became pretty adept at water conservation because we so frequently had none. And I taught students who often did not have enough to eat. I had my eyes open to the hunger and poverty of the world. It was a pilgrimage that opened my heart to human suffering.

Sometimes, we think about calling as simply a vocation, which in one sense can be. But over the course of a lifetime, there are many callings, many journeys, many pilgrimages on which to embark. And plenty of them are more spiritual than physical.

Perhaps you are being called to go to a deeper place within your faith. Or maybe, you’re being called to heal or to transfigure what has hardened or got wounded within you. Or it could be a calling to engage the world creatively in some new way… to grow or to serve or to give to meet the needs that God has placed on your heart.

Today, I pray that you would continue to be open.

Let us pray as we prayed together in the past: We thank you O God, for your calling on our lives. Grant us dreams and longings that are in harmony with your dreams and longings for us. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.