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The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. ~ Mark Twain
Through 54 years of ministry, I’ve walked in my calling.
After deciding to follow Jesus on New Year’s Eve 1971/1972 and being baptized in the ocean at Daytona Beach, Florida, while hitchhiking back to Springfield, Ohio, in early January, I heard God say, “Reach the young people for Jesus.”
Yes, it was a type of “Field of Dreams” calling like Keven Costner being told by a mysterious voice, “Build it, and he will come.” I didn’t build a baseball field in the middle of a cornfield, but my former high school was built in the middle of a cornfield, and I started from there by inviting 16 of my former friends from high school to my parents’ basement, where I told them of my conversion and then asked if they would like to accept Jesus.
Sixteen raised their hands. My calling, my “field of dreams,” was made known to me at the beginning of my walk with Jesus. The Bible gives testimony of dramatic callings with a burning bush, a light on the road to Damascus, the prophet Samuel anointing David, Jesus calling fishermen, and on and on.
History also testifies to dramatic callings. St. Augustine heard a voice telling him to read Romans 13:14, Joan of Arc had visions, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the front door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and Billy Graham stood on a golf course at night and prayed, “Oh, God, there are many things which I cannot understand, but I’m going to accept the Book by faith.”
How about you? Have you experienced a dramatic calling? Most believers haven’t, and I’ve been amazed that, when I’ve asked many over the years whether they know their calling, I’ve been told, “I’m not sure.” Believers 10, 20, even 40 years old in the Lord, and they answer, “I’m not sure.”
Not all believers receive a dramatic burning bush calling, but all of us have a calling, and the Apostle Peter writes …
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble (2 Peter 1:10, NIV).
Paul adds, “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Ephesians 4:1). We have a call, and we are to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. The importance of calling? As Mark Twain said, “The day you were born, and the day you found out why.”
Os Guinness, in his book The Call, says …
What do I mean by “calling”? For the moment, let me say simply that calling is the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.
Calling has a specificity for all of us, not only called to Jesus, but called to serve in a particular way. As good stewards of God’s grace, we should seek to know our calling, because life’s success will be dimmed without the context of the purpose that only God’s calling gives.
Os Guinness continues, “… as modern people have too much to live with and too little to live for.”
What is your calling? How do you find out? In tomorrow’s Interruption #1748, we will ask and answer these two questions. Prayerfully, for your next 10, 20, or even 40 years, you will serve Jesus according to your calling.