Running From Your Calling

When Moses was in Egypt, he ran away to the land of Midian to avoid being charged with murder in Pharaoh’s court. He had a calling on his life to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but he went the other way. Moses spent forty years in the land of Midian, when his calling was in Egypt. God had to put the exodus on hold, while He waited for Moses to be ready to fulfill his calling.
When God told Jonah to go warn Ninevah, Jonah caught a ship headed to Tarshish. Tarshish was about as far from Ninevah as there was in the known world at the time. God arranged for a whale to swallow Jonah, to bring Jonah to the understanding that he needed to fulfill his calling, and, eventually, Jonah went to Ninevah. God waited until after Jonah had preached to Ninevah before pronouncing His final judgment. In fact, God spared Ninevah because the people repented at Jonah’s preaching.
There is a story, I don’t know for sure if it is true, but the story is that a Christian man was in a restaurant, and felt it laid upon his heart to share about a hope in Christ with the waiter. He understandably (I say understandably—some of you may not understand, and that’s actually a good thing if you don’t. I won’t pretend that I don’t understand) felt awkward about doing it, so each time the waiter came by his table, he made an excuse to himself. Each time, God dealt with him a little stronger. Finally he couldn’t stand it any more, and he promised God that the next time the waiter came by, he would talk to him. The waiter didn’t come by for a very long time. The man finished his meal, and was waiting for the check. And waiting, and waiting. Finally the manager came by, asked if he enjoyed his meal, asked if he wanted anything else, and gave him his check. “Wait,” he asked, “what happened to the waiter?” The manager gave him an awkward look, and then, lowering his voice, said, “I don’t quite now how to tell you this, but, about fifteen minutes ago, he went out into the alley and, well, he took his own life.”
Moses ran from his calling, but God didn’t take his calling from him, He just delayed it for a time. Jonah ran from his calling, but God gave him another chance. Sometimes I think God gets tired of people running away, though. Just because God chose to use Moses and Jonah in spite of themselves, doesn’t mean that He promises to be so patient with any of us. Did you know that you can run from your calling without taking a single step? You can hide from your calling in your routine, or in your attitude. Your calling isn’t necessarily to go be missionary in some dark jungle somewhere; it’s more likely to be just to share with people that you work with or go to school with that don’t know Jesus. It may very well be that the biggest difference between what you’re doing now and what you should be doing is just the words that come out of your mouth. The Bible says that from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. If you truly love God, that’s going to be in your conversation, not just your words, but the way that you live your life. People should be able to see in you a heart for ministry, even before you open your mouth, but when you open your mouth, it should confirm what they already observed. Not fulfilling your calling, though, can have dire consequences, not just for you, but for those around you, also.

The Chastening Rod

In the movie Michael Clayton, George Clooney plays the title role, a lawyer who works for a big law firm in New York City, but more than a lawyer, he’s a fixer. At the beginning of the movie, he gets a call in the middle of the night that one of the law firm’s clients has had an accident, upstate. Michael Clayton gets in his car, drives upstate, meets with the client, finds out that the accident was a hit-and-run, and tries to make sure that the client has the best local legal representation he can arrange. The client gets very frustrated, because he doesn’t feel that the accident was his fault (and he has several justifications as to why this accident was not his fault), and Michael Clayton doesn’t seem to be ‘fixing’ the situation to his satisfaction. The bottom line is, the client wants Clooney’s character to simply make the hit-and-run go away; but there is no legal way to do that. He’s looking to Clayton to, not only protect him from any legal ramifications, but to assuage his guilty conscience. It simply does not work that way.
I think that many times we look to God in very much the same way. We get ourselves into a mess, and then repent, and pray about it, and expect God to just make it all go away. Don’t misunderstand me, there have been times when I have made mistakes so severe that I have gotten myself worked up into a lather thinking that my situation was dire, but God had already adjusted people’s attitudes so that my consequences were not nearly so severe as I had expected. Unlike a lawyer, God can soothe an aching conscience; even if the sin that was committed was one that we, as human beings, would probably deem ‘unforgivable.’ One sin is very much like another to God. There are unforgivable sins, but it is much harder to reach a place of being beyond God’s reach than one might expect.
“But I thought God was a loving God? Shouldn’t He absolve me of the consequences of my actions when He forgives me?” Let me ask you this: Didn’t your parents love you, when you were growing up? (and if the answer to that question honestly is ‘no’ then think about other kids that you knew whose parents loved them) Did they let you slide when you misbehaved, or did they punish you? If they really loved you, then they punished you because they wanted you to learn from your mistake. They wanted you to at least grow up to be a good person, didn’t they? Maybe they didn’t do everything that they could have or even should have, because they were only human, but didn’t they want you to grow to be more upright? Wasn’t that because they loved you? The Bible tells us that loving parents will correct their children. Let me hasten to point out that the Scripture has been used as an excuse to beat sons and daughters severely. Any correction should be meted out with love and compassion, while at the same time being severe enough to be memorable, but not scarring.
The Bible says that God punishes the ones He loves. He wants us to learn, and grow in Him, and to be all that we can be (more so than the Army does). He will try to teach us without chastisement, if He can, but if we don’t learn, and continue to act out, then He will get more severe. The severity of His punishment will always be in proportion to our actions, though (even if it doesn't seem like it at the time).