I take that back...

In my last post I believe I said something like..."I can come up with something intelligent to say about my own sense of Christian calling". Well I'm back to say that in fact I'm having a very difficult time coming up with something intelligent to say about my own sense of Christian calling. Ugh. I wish doing assignments consisted of doing the reading, absorbing and thinking about the material and then sitting down with the professor over a cup of coffee (or in my case hot chocolate) and just sharing what's on my heart. This process of writing something down that is sufficient in a "stand alone" kind of way that expresses what I think about this topic of "calling" is EXCRUCIATING!!!! So in lieu of shooting the breeze with my professor over coffee perhaps what I'll do is bullet point some of my thoughts about my own sense of Christian calling here......

1. I have a 'calling' simply I have been 'called' to follow Christ. My primary calling is to live in relationship with God in a way that demonstrates his Lordship in my life. Every Christian is 'called' in this way. I rise to this 'calling' or fall miserably short of it in every moment of every day simply because I exist and belong to Him. That sounds profound, doesn't it? All I'm trying to say is that everything I do is an opportunity to demonstrate God's call in my life. Everyday and ordinary tasks and actions are a matter of discipleship. I have the ability to demostrate God's calling in all areas of my life...physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual.

2. Discovering what might possibly be my secondary and more individual calling is important because I recognize that God has created me with unique gifts, strengths and weaknesses, talents, family blessings and baggage. He created me with a purpose in mind. I suspect that discovering what this 'calling' on my life is may never come in an 'AHA'! moment. In his book, Guiness quotes Oswald Chambers....

"If you can tell where you got the call of God and all about it, I question whether you have ever had a call. The call of God does not come like that, it is much more supernatural. The realization of it in a man's life may come with a sudden thunder-clap or with a gradual dawning, but in whatever way it comes it comes with the undercurrent of the supernatural, something that cannot be put into words".

I LOVE that quote! I wonder if one day I'll find myself recognizing God's 'call' in my life and not really even be able to pinpoint how I got there. It's all part of the journey. More so than figuring out what exactly that call is, it's important to figure out who God created me to be. Now obviously this is a life long process but part of that process is becoming more self-aware in the knowledge who God says I am. As Guiness so aptly puts it "...calling says: Do what you are." It's kind of hard to do that if I am woefully unaware of who I am:)

Ok, so not really bullet points. Some stuff to think about. Who knew 'calling' was so complicated?