Receive Your Calling

Have you ever had a burning bush experience? Famously Moses did (see Exodus 3). Combustion appeared to be happening but the bush was not being destroyed. A very unusual way for God to get Moses’ attention! Or maybe it was like the Damascus road – St Paul being cast to the ground and rendered blind by the dazzling light of heaven!
Sometimes people ask me how I came to be a vicar? Well, I can say there was no burning bush or Damascus road, more of a stirring in the heart of the direction I was to head. The direction gradually unfolded one step at a time. It was not a childhood ambition! It also depended upon the views and insights of others. I suspect most of us plot our course in this way, and seek to discern the promptings of God’s Spirit.
This week our small groups will explore this question and it will be our focus next Sunday. It commences our six week series on ‘Stepping into God’s Future’. The fact is all of us have to figure out what we are to do with our lives. At times in life it may be very clearly mapped out, at other times there are big choices to be discerned and made. Yet for each one of us we can know one thing for certain: God has a calling and a purpose for our lives. We are not put on this earth by accident. Nor are we put here simply to enjoy ourselves. We have a high calling and a profound purpose.
But what is it? Well, that’s the critical question and one I cannot answer for you (though it is helpful to have wise ‘counsellors’!). I hope you will wrestle with that question afresh in coming weeks. For some of you that may mean a change of direction. For others of you that may mean a confirmation of where you are heading. For all of us I hope it will help us to see our daily activities, ordinary as they may often appear, to be the canvas upon which God is painting His purpose in our lives.
So here are a couple of key points to think about.
1. God’s work is in the world as much as in the church (which is not to downplay the significance of church!)! If you are a plumber, a painter, a cleaner, a crane driver, an accountant or academic, a student or school kid, these are callings if you have the sense of being God’s servant in these places. If you are ‘retired’ you are free to discover afresh God’s calling and explore fresh opportunities for service. If you are raising children and doing so that they may walk with the Lord, you have a very high calling. The fact of the matter is this: we are all called.
2. If the language of ‘calling’ seems more than you can identify with; if you are not sure if what you are doing is what you are called to do; do not be anxious but be open as to how God may lead you forward. Begin with the advice that Paul gives to the Corinthians, “so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). If everything we do is ‘for the glory of God’, we will never stray very far.
Next Sunday is also Pentecost. It has the sense of the Holy Spirit present with us to enable us to fulfil what God has placed before us. We are not only called; we are also empowered.
Over these coming weeks I pray that we all may have a renewed sense of our calling and of the Holy Spirit’s work in us both individually and together.