The High Calling of all Believers

What is your calling? What has God called you to do?

In Christian circles we like to talk about calling. We hold it up as something important. We make it into something that we can use to put people on a pedestal.

In the process, we leave many Christian feeling less than because they don't feel like they have a calling from God on their lives. They fell unworthy as believers because they think God didn't see them as good enough and gifted enough to be called to something specific.

We also set people up for failure with the way we talk about calling. When someone says they feel like they're called to something, we often put a list of expectations from them, of what that calling should look like. We put them in a box of our own making of what that calling should look like. And it's usually not God's ideas.

What if calling is something so much simpler than all we make it out to be? What if we could be certain what the calling of every believer was?

"Our call is not to 'fix' everyone else, please everyone else, or live up to everyone else's expectations of us. Our call is simply to wholeheartedly love Christ; then He will direct our steps." (Sheila Walsh, All That Really Matters)

When we look at the call of God on our lives this way, it changes things. We don't have to wonder if we're called to it. We don't have to feel stuck in a box. It frees us to really live the life God intends for us to live.

The call of all believers is to love God first. It's as simple and as difficult as that.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was in Matthew 22, He answered with these words: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (vs. 37) Jesus teaches us that the most important thing for us to do is love God. He goes on to say that the second is loving your neighbour as yourself.

When we choose to love God first and love Him with everything we are and everything we have, He shows us what comes next. He will show us how to love our neighbour and who that neighbour is.

We can be sure that we are loving God first, He will show us what to do next. That part looks different for all of us and may look like what other people expect of us. We may not always know clearly what it is, but we can be confident of what our first call is as believers - to love God.

Words From God Will Never Fail

"For no word from God will ever fail." (Luke 1:37)

These are the final words the angel says to Mary after telling her about God's choosing her to be the mother of the promised Messiah and about her relative Elizabeth's pregnancy. (See Luke 1:26-38 for the full story).

When I read these words I stopped and had to go back to reread. They seemed to be different than I was used to remembering. In other translations Luke 1:37 reads that nothing is impossible with God. A reminder of God's ability to do exactly what He says He will do even if it seems impossible from our limited human perspective.

If God says He will do something - even what seems impossible - we can be sure that His word will not fail to happen.

That's a significant truth to hold onto in life. One that should cause us to stop and think.

"For no word from God will ever fail." (Luke 1:37)

The angel had just told Mary the impossible, from a human perspective, would happen for her. And the impossible had already happened for her relative Elizabeth. The angel then tells Mary that no word from God would ever fail. The angel declares in these few words just how reliable what God says is.

I've been thinking about the impact on how we live these words have if we really believe them. If we really believe no word from God will ever fail, we live differently. We live out of a trust that goes beyond what seems obvious. We live with an ability to wait, even in the silence, that is beyond what we could do on our own.

"For no word from God will ever fail." (Luke 1:37)

Do I really believe this? Do you really believe this?

"For no word from God will ever fail." (Luke 1:37)

Does the way I live say I believe this? Does the way you live say you believe this?

Impatience with the Waiting

"So isn't there something here that should tell us that while hoping for the miracle, while praying for the miracle, maybe we should view God's silence not as punishment but as preparation? May be we should stop cursing the waiting and start thanking God for it? May be should trust that His timing and His way is perfect, and that He's only asking us to wait because He loves us too much to bring us something we're not yet ready for? . . .
Long we wait for the promise. But we don not wait alone. He is here, in the waiting, in the praying, in the weeping, in the hoping, in the doubting, in the trusting, in the wishing . . . HE IS HERE."
(Mandy Hale, The Single Woman)


I read the above quote as part of a blog on advent, waiting, and singleness. The Single Woman is one of my favourite blogs to read on life as a single Christian woman. Honesty about the good and hard realities of life, encouragement and hope in the midst of it all. The post this quote is from was no exception and left me with much to ponder.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, many events around the holidays can present a challenge for singles. A season where the reminder of being single and what we long for and are waiting for seems to be much more noticeable. Then I came across this post that reminded me once again, that in a time of year I love because of what we are celebrating, it's okay of I struggle with the waiting sometimes. The important thing is what I do in the waiting.

Do I put my trust in God?

Or do I get impatient and go looking for my own solution to fill that longing?

When Jesus came to earth as a baby, the Israelites has been waiting for the promised Messiah for generations. They had waited while God had been completely silent for the last 400 years.

In those years of waiting, they had come to their own conclusions and ideas of what it would look like for the promised Messiah to come. Instead of waiting with God for what He promised in His timing, they began to look for what they wanted - what they thought they needed. And then, they missed God's promise fulfilled.

When I reflect on this, I see how easy it could be for me to do the same thing in my life. Instead of taking my desire for marriage to God in prayer and trusting that God has things in control, I could get impatient with the waiting and try to make it happen all on my own. Or I can trust God in the waiting that He is preparing me for His plan - which may or may not look like mine.

It's a choice we all have in any area where we feel like we're waiting. We always get to choose how we will wait. Will we trust God? Will we remember that He is there in the waiting? Or will we do our own thing and miss what God has for us because of it?