I received an e-mail message from a fellow blogger named Kellie. This delightful young lady lives very near to me and had lots of interesting things to say, but one statement she made really challenged me. "I want to work with teens and help them with their problems and help them know that even though sometimes it feels like it, they’re not alone; like my youth pastor…has to me! He has helped me through so much and I absolutely adore him! He’s the reason that I want to be a youth pastor.” Kellie reminds us how important it is that we stay true to our calling, even when we don't feel like it.
I was called into ministry when I was 28 years old, though I had been saved since I was five. I know that sounds awfully young to understand the concept of salvation, but I understood enough to know that my only two choices were to spend eternity alone or with God and all my loved ones who had given their hearts and lives to Him. Thankfully, everyone in my world at that time was saved and destined for heaven, so the choice was a no brainer for me.
Though I had been a Christian for 23 years, at age 28 I realized that though I knew that I was secure in God’s love, I had never fully understood or participated in the relationship that is Christianity. It took my pursuing my dreams and even realizing many of them, yet still feeling empty and unfulfilled to force me to confront the cause of my emptiness. One night, just before our son was born, I sat in my study in the dark and began to ask God if this was all there was to the Christian life.
What happened next was not at all what I expected, but it was precisely what I needed, and God knew it. In the stillness and quietness of that night, God’s Holy Spirit paid me a visit and introduced Himself to me as a real Person--the third Person of the Trinity to be precise. (Don’t worry too much if you don’t fully understand the Trinity! Just accept the fact that God exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three distinct personalities in one Being.) He didn’t speak to me audibly, but He might as well have, because I heard Him just as clearly.
In a very loving and gentle yet authoritative way, God’s Spirit impressed upon my heavy heart to write down on paper all the specific unconfessed sins that I had committed in my life. Plenty of times I had asked for forgiveness for my sins, but rarely, if ever, had I enumerated my specific sins like lying to my parents, or cheating on a test, or indulging impure thoughts. I guess I had assumed that saying the words "forgive me of my sins" was enough. God’s Word, however, says otherwise. But isn’t it like a loving God to let us know when we’ve missed the mark? Sinner that I was, God had every right to open up the earth right under my feet and let me drop headlong into hell, but He instead chose to point out all of my unconfessed sins and give me the opportunity to admit them, to turn from them, and to be cleansed.
At the Holy Spirit's direction, I grabbed a ream of notebook paper and a pen and started writing. The obvious sins were pretty easy to remember. I had the better part of a column filled and hoped that I was nearing the end. My memory suddenly became sharper than it had ever been, however, and for every sin that I wrote down, ten more would pop into my mind. I wrote and wrote for what seemed like hours, and still I was remembering sins from my youth and even my childhood. I half expected to feel flames lick at my feet at any minute during this excruciating experience.
—Note to the faint of heart: Fire is necessary for purification, but God’s fire never consumes us. It only burns away the impurities that keep us from fulfilling His plan for our lives.
Eventually, just as surely as I had sensed God instructing me to write down each sin, as I wrote what was to be the last sin that the Spirit brought to my mind, I felt prompted to stop writing. No sooner than I had laid down my pencil, I sensed Him prompting me to grab the red marker in my pencil holder and write in big, bold letters across every page, "ALL FORGIVEN!" I did as I was instructed and as I did, something broke inside me. It wasn’t a painful breaking like that of a limb, but like the breaking of the alabaster box that released the fragrant oil with which Jesus was anointed. I took the stack of pages to our gas range in the kitchen and one-at-a-time, set them ablaze. As the smoke from the burning paper rose to the ceiling, the burden of all the unconfessed sins I had been carrying for all those years lifted as well. I felt clean and free for the first time in my life.
I haven’t forgotten that this article is about one's calling, but my testimony has everything to do with my calling. In that same night, I realized, also for the first time, that God had had a plan and purpose for my life since before I was born. I had read that many times in Scripture before that night, but I guess it just hadn’t made the short journey from my head to my heart. I knew it was true, but I had never experienced it as such. In the process of being still and quiet, I had given God the opportunity to actually communicate to me what He had planned for me. When I finally became willing to listen, He was more than willing to tell me.
It was in that experience that I first felt my call to ministry. It was months later before I would know my specific calling, but I clearly sensed God calling me. I believe that God will only entrust to us as much as we’re willing to use for His glory, whether it’s knowledge, wisdom, money, or whatever. Up until that time I had followed my heart and asked God to bless those endeavors in which I chose to become involved. I had never really considered that God might have had something specific in mind for me. He patiently waited, however, until I was ready and willing to know His plan for me before He began to reveal it to me.
One reason I believe that people don’t know God’s will for their lives is that they are unwilling to commit to it before they know every detail about it. There are reasons why God chooses to withhold knowledge from us. Probably the most significant is that He knows that if He tells us everything about His future plans for us, we would probably be unwilling to accept them. God prepares us over time, and if we cooperate with Him, He will reveal more and more of His plan for us as it becomes necessary.
In the pursuit of my calling, I sent resumes to hundreds of ministries all over the world, but received only one invitation to join a fledgling family ministry in Virginia. I took a bus from Tennessee to check it out for a few weeks, and when I sensed that God was in it, I sent for my wife and son to join me. It was a difficult, but very necessary time for us. We lived with another couple, had no car, no salary, no insurance; none of the things most folks would consider essential, and yet not one need ever went unmet. I was so sure that God had led us to Virginia that even when this ministry folded in fewer than six months after we arrived, I didn't doubt God's plan. I took a job selling stereos in the local mall while I waited for my next instructions. This was the first, and one of the few times in my life when I actually trusted God even though I didn't know what He was doing.
As expected, God did not disappoint. While I was involved in the family ministry, we had rented a house next door to a very sweet Christian couple with two teenage daughters. We got to know them right away, and their daughters often babysat for our son, who was not quite a year old. We really enjoyed their girls and several of their friends also lived on our block, so our house and yard became hangouts for the neighborhood teens. Unbeknownst to us, all of these teenagers attended the same church.
Just before Christmas our neighbors invited us over for pie and coffee. We had a very warm and wonderful visit with them, getting to know each other better and talking about the Lord and life in general. At one point, the girls’ mother asked me directly what I felt called to do. Up until that moment, I had never honestly given it much thought and I told her so. She then asked me what I was passionate about. I was taken aback by the directness of her question, but as I pondered it for a moment, two things came to mind. I hadn't consciously thought about it much, but that I had two non-negotiables in life besides Jesus and my family, and those were teenagers and music. I had never spent any significant amount of time since college without being involved with one or the other or both.
She brightened up when I said that, as if she had just won the lottery. It turns out their church had been looking for a youth and music minister, but after more than a year of searching, had not yet found one. She asked if she could submit my name to their pastor. I immediately argued that I was too unqualified and too inexperienced to hold such a position, but she persisted in getting me to agree to at least meet with their pastor.
A few days later, I drove through a light blanket of snow for just over a mile from where we lived to a beautiful little church sitting back off the two-lane country road. I introduced myself to the pastor and we spent almost four hours together, enjoying some of the sweetest Christian fellowship I can remember. After a series of what can only be called miracles, this unqualified, inexperienced, but available and willing young man was called by God and this church to be full-time youth and music minister. The five years we spent as part of this church are still among the most precious of our lives.
Here are some things I have learned about one’s calling from God:
- It is irrevocable ("For God's gifts and his call can never be withdrawn" Romans 11:29 NLT.)
- It is usually related to one’s passions, though not always (Kellie has a passion for helping kids, so that very well could be her calling!)
- It usually requires one to live outside his or her comfort zone (ministry of any type is time-consuming, strenuous and sometimes challenging.)
- God calls us to tasks that are greater than we are so that we have to depend on Him for our success. If we minister in our own strength, we will be tempted to take the credit for what we think we have accomplished.
Have you given any thought to what your calling might be? If not, it’s never too late to consider. Start with God’s Word, then consider your passions, your abilities, and your opportunities. Then offer the result to God and let Him define for you the one thing in life that will bring you the joy, fulfillment, and sense of purpose for which you have yearned. Once you figure it out, rejoice in the fact that you’ve found “the most important work you can do in which you would be most difficult to replace.” Celebrate your uniqueness, because only YOU can be who God designed and created you to be, and only YOU can do what He has called you to do!
[1] BizNetDaily, November 16, 2004, http://www.wnd.com/biznetdaily
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