New Year's Message: Your Calling

 

 

As I contemplated what to speak about for The New Year, the LORD put on my mind something I have witnessed, and in particular something The Apostle Paul spoke of. As Christians we have a Macro Calling, to Make Disciples (Matthew 28:19) and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the call of all Christians, irrespective of our culture, background, race, or fiscal place in this world. However, we also have Micro Calling, that only we can fufill, it is the unique way in which we can witness and use our talents, gifts, and abilities. For some it is to be an artist, another to build a business, another to be a musician, and so forth; this are the micro callings, not that they are small and insignificant, rather in our lives micro means to like taking microscope, details, specific ways in which we apply our Calling, while Macro is the larger Kingdom of God Calling of all Saints to preach the gospel and make disicples. We are doing both, the Micro even being how we can do the Macro as in a Musician / Composer like Handel made The Messiah, or Da Vinci did his famous piece, The Last Supper. The Micro was their talent, this skill in the particular gift set, in which they honor the Macro in the Kingdom of God. 

My warning this New Year's Eve is that you can give up your Calling. Contrary to Medieval thinking that God controls us like chess pieces, He partners with us, as a spouse, and just as you have free will in your marriage or relationships with others, you have  free will with God. You can choose to either to use he Micro Calling to achieve what the LORD placed you on this earth to do with it, or you can abandon the gift, or let the devil twist it into a counterfiet. I do not speak from some high horse, I have watched as the men in my family, with great callings set them aside. My Father was a Pastor, a mighty one and he set aside this calling in Christ because of church hurt. My brother was a Worship Leader, who composed his own songs, he had such a talent and real gift to facilitate the Holy Spirit descending during worship, he gave it up for a woman, who hated his micro call. I have seen the evil one working on me as well, though instead of making me give up my gift of writing altogether, he seeks to subvert it and keep it soley in the vein of entertainment, rather than here. So I do not judge harshly my father and brother, but their choices stand as a warning to me, that even the greatest running in the Upperward Call of the Lord can be sidetracked, can be led astray from the Calling that God intended for them. 

Lest you think God will not replace you, I have a story to tell you. There was an explorer, much hated nowadays, but his tale is one I need to tell. Christopher Columbus was called by God to explore the route to the New World and the rest of the world, in his journals he told how The LORD showed him in Scripture that it says, "The LORD sits above the sphere/circle of the Earth," () that it was not flat, and this gave him faith to go off the map, hoping to find India, when instead he discovered The New World, this is why he called The Natives Indians, thinking he was in Indies. But that was not all God intended for Him, he was suppose to chart the rest of the way around the world, but he became obessesed with gold in the New World, he even in his journals said he could not set aside this lust for gold despite God telling him three times to do so. The LORD even told him, "if you will not give up this quest for gold, I shall replace you with another." Columbus died of Malaria, and The Holy Trinity raised up another man, Magellan to find the way around the world (This information is in Columbus' Journal, and THe Light and The Glory, Peter and David Marshall). Within the church at that time, St. Francis of Assisi was told by God to "reform His Church," but instead he formed another order like the others, and God raised up a man named Martin Luther in Germany to accomplish the mission of Reformation. 

I want to be perfectly clear. I know hurts, disappointments, and fears can be crippling. I do not mean to goad you into picking up your guitar, your pen, your pain brush, your program to design, and so forth. I am simply telling you between my own experience and history that you can give up your Calling, you can tell God no, and He will raise up another; but do not mistake that He wants to raise up another and that you are just another number in his legions, no it breaks His heart that you set aside what will give you so much fulfillment and joy in Him and this world. Jim Caviziel said that he felt his calling, the reason He was born was to play Jesus in The Passion of Christ, and that fulfillment of this call has made him feel complete, and now anything he does after is just bonuses. Its not like God lets you finish your Micro Calling, you can keep doing more, but there maybe a big project like The Messiah for Handel with "Hallelujah Chorus," and in the case of Jim Caviziel it was The Passion of the Christ. But that does not mean once they accomplished doing those great works, God was like "your done, come home," no they have more to do, they just got to do their Sermon on the Mount moment part of their Calling. 

I urge you as we are about to begin a new year, that you hold fast to your calling, that you do not desert it, and allow anyone to seduce you away, whither through inflicting hurt on you as my Father was so, or seduced in point of fact as my Brother was by a woman to lay down his instrument forever. That you do not as Columbus find yourself chasing gold, or as St. Francis settling for same old same old when God is asking you to do something bigger. The Apostle said, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us." (Philippians 3:14). Amen.