The call of God on a person’s life

I’ve wrestled with this long enough.  Time to write it.

I’ve had a few people say to me that God is more interested in who I am, who we ARE as individuals, than he is interested in what I or WE as individuals do.

It’s true, of course.  But there’s a nuance to be considered when it comes to calling.

It’s simply this: in terms of calling, what a person does IS who they are.  If a person serves God to the exclusion of other things, their DOING is inherently part of their BEING.

I cannot overemphasise this matter.

Now, of course, it is also true—just to bring in and hold tensions that are there—that is opposites that are equally true—as in ‘both/and’ truths—it is also true that our identity in Christ far surpasses DOING.  It really does.  God’s less interested in what we do “for God” than our loving others, for one instance, and I’d cite Matthew 5:23-24 as the prooftext there.

BUT—in an article like this there are always buts.

If a person has a genuine calling of God on their life, they will not be able to refuse that call.  They can try all they like, and I can tell you personally, I’ve tried to head toward Tarshish very many times, but neither God nor wise ones around me allowed that to happen.  They said, “You need to repent and make turn for Nineveh.”  Leaving my calling never stuck.

I’d go so far as to say that when you’ve got a calling of God on your life, you can be cast out by “man,” but you can’t be cast out of your calling.  What I mean is “men” may cast you out, but God never does.

I know there are people who feel called but who may not serve well, or who may even do harm and think they’re helping.  Repentance is the sign of the called.  A heart that says, “If I do any wrong, I will repent, seek to make restitution, and restore people and situations.”  That’s actually a hallmark of the calling of God in my view, because what’s inherent to calling is the commitment to ‘do no [more] harm’.

But the thrust of this article on calling is the person IS what they do.  Their being is in WHAT they’re doing.  They are highly operational.  Their intent is set on making a tangible difference, which in ministry terms is often a tangibility delivered in intangible ways.

Not least a person called of God shows their call by DOING, given that their BEING is judged by others and God by how they lived their life, what they DID and how they did it, especially in terms of holiness, faith, and repentance.

This is what happens when a person prays the prayer, “Lord, having recognised Your call on my life, my life is Yours now, I pledge to do everything to follow You.”  One could argue that this calling is every Christian’s domain, yet how few take it seriously.

But the one who hears from God, the one who is affirmed by wise others, the one who is affirmed by called others, the gifted one, receives that call because they cannot deny it.

Such a person will always find a way to serve their God.

“... as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Joshua 24:15