What Is Your Calling?

Yesterday I posted on the subject of making sure that you are abiding in your calling, but, to be honest, I really only scratched the surface. There is a lot involved in making sure that you are doing what God would have you to do. I talked about praying for guidance, and I talked about laying a fleece before the Lord; today I am going to get deeper into it than that.

It has been said that the greatest ability is availability. If you really want to do something for God, you need to be ready at all times. The most important thing for a Christian to do is to be ready to share the Gospel with someone else. If someone wakes you up at o-dark-thirty in the morning and wants you to tell them about Jesus, would you be ready? I understand that sometimes waking up out of a sound sleep just being able to function is a chore, so, under those circumstances, would you be able to pull yourself together? Keep in mind, that they probably wouldn’t wake you up like that unless they felt an urgent need, and if God has given them a sense of urgency, there may be a very good reason for that. Let’s be honest about this, your natural reaction would be to tell them to go away and come back in the morning, but they may not have until morning. Much as you would like to roll over and go back to sleep, there is a soul hanging in the balance, and if you can’t show compassion to that lost soul in the middle of the night, then how can you say that you have the love of God in you?

So, how do you know what is God’s will for your life? Well, I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I can only give you a part of God’s will for your life, and this is something that I know because it is God’s will for everyone: Get saved, stay saved, and see others saved. Any more details, you’re going to have to ask God about. While you’re at it, you may as well ask Him if I’m right about those three things (I am, but I don’t mind you checking up on me; if I were you, I would).

One thing that you should know: When God speaks, He has a small, still voice. A lot of people expect God to have this thunderous, attention-getting, deep voice. He doesn’t. He speaks in more of a whisper, in the back of your head. In the Old Testament there was a time when Elijah was dealing with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, and they were not godly people. Jezebel sent a message to Elijah telling him that he was going to die. I’m quite sure that she meant it. I’m not sure why Elijah didn’t believe that God could protect him, but he went and hid himself in a cave. While he was hiding in the cave, God spoke to him in His small, still voice, and Elijah went to the mouth of the cave to talk to God. There was a great wind, but God wasn’t in the wind; the wind was there to distract Elijah, to try to keep him from hearing what God had to say. Then there was an earthquake and a fire, but God wasn’t in those, either, they were just distractions. Elijah, though, was attentive to the still, small voice, and God asked him why he was hiding (as if God didn’t know). Elijah started explaining to God what had happened. It’s funny, isn’t it? Elijah knew God, He knew that God was all-knowing and all-powerful, and that Jezebel couldn’t take Elijah’s life unless God allowed it, and Jezebel couldn’t even threaten Elijah’s life without God knowing about it, and yet, here he is, trying to explain to God how much trouble he’s in because he followed after God instead of the queen, and it never even seems to occur to him that God doesn’t need his explanation, God just wants Elijah to think about what he’s doing there. And finally God tells Elijah what to do. My point, though, is that God’s voice is a small, still voice, but he can make Himself heard, as long as you are willing to put forth the effort to listen.