Answering the Call

Article by Valerie Thompson

We all have a calling on our lives.  But what if your call involved experiencing the death of someone close to you?  What if it meant that the people you call your friends will turn their backs on you?  What if answering the call meant that you had to give up something that you love?  Each of us was born with a call on our lives, a destiny that awaits us and that will never change, but what that call will truly require of us, we may never know until we are forced to experience it when the time is right.

Our call is one of submission to God.  Within the word submission, you will find “mission”, calling, duty, obligation.  When we are on our own personal mission, we set the stakes, lay out our plan and choose whether or not to follow through based on our own ideas of the consequences.  But when we are sub-missive, our mission is not our own.  We are sent on our path by God himself who has set the parameters of our mission and who has already laid out our plan.  The “consequence” is the manifestation of true “goodness” for our lives and glory unto God.  But if you’re like me, it’s not enough to simply know that God has our best interests in mind, or believe that He cares.  I must be in agreement that this plan of His is the right thing for me to follow.  I have to be ok with giving Him complete control, no matter what He faces me with, or I’m not totally submitted.

It’s easy to come to church. Getting dressed, getting in your car and making it to this building isn’t hard.  Singing in the choir, ushering, cooking the food to eat after service are all things that we can probably do with our eyes closed according to the talents that God has blessed us with.  After service is over and we return home, it’s easy to look over our schedules for the week and prepare to accomplish the tasks that we set out to complete.  What isn’t so easy, is to ask God what He would like to see us do with our week, and actually listen for the answer.  It’s harder to hear that He wants you to go in a different direction, but hasn’t quite pointed out the way.  It’s easy to plan, but it’s hard to submit.  It’s easy to worry, but it’s harder to trust.  It’s easier to make a plan B, than it is to wait until the last second to see if God is really going to come through.  Answering the call that God has on your life for total submission is easy, but following through, regardless of what comes to face you is not easy at all.

I’m in a time in my life that seems foggy.  I wake up in the morning unsure of how to be productive according to God’s plan.  I go to sleep guilty for not living up to what I think are His expectations of me.  I watch the hours pass, and wonder what more life will bring to me, and how long I have left to find out.  I look at the decisions I’ve made, and the things that God has unexpectedly done and am left feeling numb.  Knowing that God loves and cares for me helps sooth the outer layer of pain, but inside, the scars are still there.  It’s easy to look good on the outside, but harder to face the real worry and doubt that you are afraid to tell other believers you have deep down inside.  I’ve questioned God often, wondering how this event or that could possibly play a productive role in the plan that he has for my life.  I’ve been disappointed when I’ve prayed and longed for a response that is met with silence.  It is in these times that submission seems pointless, forced and fruitless.  But in writing these words, I am reminded of Romans 9:14 – 18 “What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”  I was reminded that in previous prayers I asked God to use me!  I told Him that I was open to his direction and guidance; that I would be willing to go, as Isaiah did, and wanted to do anything for the Lord’s service.  It is in those prayers that I gave God permission to take my life, take control and spin it in any direction that he pleases.  Ephesians 1:11-12 says “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.” I didn’t know that direction meant unemployment.  I didn’t know that it meant poverty.  I didn’t know that it would be lonely and scary.  I didn’t know that I would feel like a failure sometimes, that I would not accomplish certain things that I always hoped I would by this time in my life.  Most of all, I didn’t know that giving God that permission to do with me what He wants would mean that my life would be out of my control.  Proverbs 19:21 says “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

When we answer the call, God might take us in a direction that we did not initially consider, yet fully in line with his purpose.  Exodus 9:16 says “But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” Isaiah had been given a vision of God calling out for a volunteer to go before His people on behalf of the Trinity and give a prophesy.  He didn’t know what God was going to say.  He had no idea how the people would receive it, and yet, he very enthusiastically said, “Send me!”  Submission to the call of God is really an agreement.  Agreement with God about where He will send you, what will be required of you when you get there and with who God will bring into your life during that journey.  God’s plan for preparing you for your call might involve pain, loss and suffering.  When submitting to God, we give Him permission to do whatever it takes to prepare us to take on the call.  Army boot camp isn’t fun.  It’s a grueling process that whips you into shape and prepares you to take on the enemy however he may attack.  When you answer God’s call, he will put you through spiritual boot camp.  Are things in your life falling apart?  Is the unexpected continually popping up?  Is your road being made more and more rough as you face taxing situations that seem unwarranted?  Boot camp.  God has decided that it is time to train you to fight in the war that is being waged in the heavens right now.  Not a war that determines who wins or who looses, but one that is trying to destroy your faith. Ephesians 10: 3-4 says “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” Not everything that you face comes to comfort you.  Not every person you meet will be there to uplift you.  We must remember that what we pray for: peace, fruits of the spirit, freedom, etc. are only fully experienced once we completely let go, and let God have His way.  We must be flexible with how God answers our prayer and how he chooses to manifest that answer in our lives. Praying a prayer of submission will produce a loss of control in your life.  When you ask God to take over your life, you are volunteering to be out of control. Praying to be used for God’s purposes opens us up to be singled out, called upon, moved, changed, shaken, worked, and caught off guard.  But there is one very important thing in God’s calling that we can be sure of… hope.  Jeremiah 28:11 says “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” 

Isaiah’s mission was to inform God’s chosen people that they will no longer receive His spirit or protection.  In fact, his punishment didn’t introduce anything new that the people would have to face, He simply made their hardened hearts and rebellious ways a permanent state of mind. Remaining in the sin they created was their punishment.  That is a pretty heavy thing to have to tell someone.  We’re so used to saying an encouraging word to someone about their situation.  Rarely do we ever give someone a hug and whisper to them, “God is about to turn his back on you”.  But this was Isaiah’s call.  He had been enlightened to tell the Israelites that they would no longer be.  God’s sovereignty is something that we must consider in every situation we face after we’ve answered our call.  Your own struggles in life may just be the way that God reaches someone else facing a similar situation.  God might make life suck for you on purpose!  Look at Job.  In one day he went from being the wealthiest man on his side of the desert, to loosing everything.  In Job 10: 1-7, Job says “I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.  I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me.  Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the schemes of the wicked?  Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?  Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a man, that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin– though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand?”  It wasn’t the devil who chose Job to go through the fire, it was God.   And it wasn’t because Job was who he was, it was because God was who He was.  God responds to Job in Chapter 40: 2-14 “”Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!”  Then Job answered the LORD:  “I am unworthy–how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth.  I spoke once, but I have no answer– twice, but I will say no more.”  Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:  “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.  “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself ? Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his? Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty. Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at every proud man and bring him low, look at every proud man and humble him, crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.”  God says in Isaiah 55:8-11 “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. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”  Our calling has very little to do with us.  If we are submitted, we are now children of the most High God.  Saved from our sins and inheritors of eternal life.  But there are others who, without our witness to them about Christ, will die in their sin.  There are people that live around us every day, that attend our churches and work in cubicles next to us that are going to die and go to hell because they never knew God in the pardoning of their sins.  That is the call of the Missionary.  That is the call for us all.  That our lives may be used by God in whatever way he sees fit, so that those people can see who God is through us.

The call on your life, whatever direction it may lead you, is your call and your call only.  Whether you let it ring, or answer it, it’s still your call.  There is no one else created on this earth that is being prepared for your call other than you.  Know that the purpose God has for your life will go undone unless you choose to follow it.  You are in line with it, even today and He is using this message to reach you. Know that this call is not one that you can prepare for on your own.  Your talents, abilities, skills, personality, charisma, charm, good looks, etc. have nothing to do with you being able to endure what God has set out for you.  Only He can strengthen you. Only He can equip you. Only He knows where you’re going, what you will encounter when you get there, and how to come out on the other side victorious.

Your call, once you choose to answer it, will at times seem familiar, and other times foreign.  At times you will deny it, run from it, curse it and at others will rejoice in it.  It will be a blessing today, and feel like a burden tomorrow, but God getting the glory is the point. It is for Him that you answer, not for yourself.  When Isaiah asked God to send him, not even knowing what the message he was to deliver would be, he was doing so because of his love for God.  Accepting the call told God that he didn’t care what happened to him personally; just that God’s word is carried forth for the glory of the Lord.  No matter how you feel about your call, and again, you do have one, God gave it to you so that you can glorify Him.  Because it’s not about us, we sometimes tend to feel used. We feel disappointed when the outcome isn’t financially, physically or materially beneficial to us.  But it is our soul salvation that God is focused on.  It is the salvation of our neighbors, family members, church friends, co-workers, spouses, children and government leaders that God is concerned with.  Answering His call means living a life that is controlled by one whose love for the world caused Him to give up the only Son He had so that we could be saved by grace.  If he’s willing to do that to his blameless, sinless son, what do you think that He’s willing to do with your life?

Answering your call will strengthen and humble you.  It will cause you to shed tears, and cause God to shed whatever is not like Him from your heart.  But whatever it causes you to experience, whatever may devastate you or turn your world upside down, know that in the midst, God doing his miraculous work in you.  He’s got everything under His control, all he needs is your response of submission “Here I am God, Send me.”