I don't know if anyone shares my feelings about this, but I have been walking around with the wrong sense of what it means to be called. For a long time I thought that once you figured out what your calling was you did it and the road was clear from there. Then I realized that at any given time we have multiple callings to be lots of different things. Recently I have reflected on the fact that we have a really interesting place in the world as humans.We make plans for the future that aren't guaranteed because at any moment that can all change. We expect to live for 80+ years, but that may not be the case (not being intentionally morbid just stating a fact). Also, the world changes as we have more technology, as the generation I am a part of becomes the ones taking control of things, as we learn more about the people that share this place we call home. So what are we called to?
I don't know.
What I have become sure of is that I am unsure about it all. I think that we can discern certain points about our personal callings. I think we can also learn things about how we are called into communal callings. For me the biggest answer has been to lean on the one who does the calling. To wake up every morning and say "Here I am. Speak for your servant is listening." To trust and have faith in the one who uses me despite my brokenness to do some crazy things. To listen more than I talk. I'm called to be here in this moment and to do with it what I can using the gifts and blessings that God has given me. Calling isn't a one shot deal, but a constant communication and relationship with God. What a beautiful place to be.
I think you make a really good point. The moment we sign off and think we know exactly what God is calling us to do from now to the end of time, we make ourselves complacent. Sure it sounds easy to get a simply answer and move on, but true relationship with God means constant relationship. And if our world is always changing, it only makes sense that our calling is always shifting.
ReplyDeleteI wish there was something more concrete in callings. What you said makes sense and for me that's not hard to remember...I can speak it all day long, but it's harder for me to own it. I need to be comfortable in knowing that callings are continual and several callings may be in continuity at once. How can we understand calling and be comfortable in it without drifting here there and everywhere every day? I may have several callings speaking to me at once, but how do I listen and discern those callings to make a life out of it?
ReplyDeleteI think we all wish for something more concrete, but the most concrete thing we get is the promise that God walks beside us. I understand calling now more as a both/and. We are placed where we are at for the moment and we may not always know why. We can look back and see the things that have led us to this point and we can even dream towards the future and what it might look like but we are only guaranteed this moment. I also think that when we become so focused on discerning our calling we can forget the one who does the calling in the first place. Without that voice and that presence is there a calling? Should we make life about living out a calling or should we make a calling out of living life? I think that discernment comes through relationships both with God and with each other but that's not a process that happens overnight. I trust more on the one doing the calling and those promises than I do on myself to figure it all out.
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