Your Irrevocable Calling

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We went into last weeks race at Piedmont Dragway to do one thing, stream the event. Other than thinking about business, I had not given holding a chapel service a thought since it’s not our primary focus these days. Saturday morning I realized no one was scheduled to hold a chapel service for this race and started to wonder if perhaps the Lord would ask me to do so…I started to pray.

At some point during the day Joanne and I talked about the possibility. She wondered if I should speak with the promoter. As a standard practice we do not ask to do a service, we wait for the Lord to open that door, so I elected to not chat with him. Later that evening I did texted the track manager and offered to hold a service if that was something they were interested in…the response…crickets. While disappointed, I put it to rest and went on about my business. If the Lord wanted me to hold a service, He would make it happen, not me.

Sunday morning I went about my normal routine. As we readied for the days work, someone knocked on the door. It was a young lady asking if we knew if anyone was going to hold a chapel service. That was the Lords call, the one I had hoped for. With about 30 minutes notice, the Lord brought 25 people together to glorify Him. Our Father blessed all of us that morning.

Over the last few months, I started to believe the Lord was no longer going to use me as a chaplain at the races, but have me focus solely on marketplace ministry. I was obviously wrong and continue to be amazed at the tapestry and depth of our Lord’s ways. I’m reminded once again you can not put our God in a box.

Blessings

Your Irrevocable Calling
by Os Hillman

“For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.” Romans 11:29

It is dangerous to align your calling and your vocation as dependent on each other. God calls us into relationship with Him. That is our foremost calling. It is from this relationship that our “physical” calling results. Whether that is to be a teacher, a stockbroker, a nurse, a pastor, or any number of vocations, we must realize that when He calls us, the change in vocation never changes His call on our lives. It is a mere change in the landscape of our calling. This is why it is dangerous to associate our purpose and calling too closely with our work. When we define our work life exclusively as our calling, we fall into the trap of locking up our identity into our vocation. This promotes aspiration because of a need to gain greater self-worth through what we do.

Os Guinness, author of The Call, describes the great artist Picasso, who fell into this trap.

“‘When a man knows how to do something,’ Pablo Picasso told a friend, ‘he ceases being a man when he stops doing it.’ The result was a driven man. Picasso’s gift, once idolized, held him in thrall. Every empty canvass was an affront to his creativity. Like an addict, he made work his source of satisfaction only to find himself dissatisfied. ‘I have only one thought: work,’ Picasso said toward the end of his life, when neither his family nor his friends could help him relax.” [Os Guiness, The Call (Nashville, Tennessee: Word Publishing, 1998), 242.]

What happens when you lose your job? Do you lose your calling? Do you lose your identity? Do you lose your sense of well-being? No. Calling involves different stages and experiences in life. Disruptions in your work are an important training ground for God to fulfill all aspects of His calling on your life. Trust in your God who says your calling is irrevocable and that all things come from Him.