We often hear people talk about their life’s calling? Do you know yours? In this week’s Monday Minute, Tonia shares some encouraging truths for us all as we seek to glorify God.
A Life’s Calling
by Tonia Gütting
Dishes and diapers, briefings and barracks inspections and a slow death by bullet points…daily tasks can be so daily, and tasking. “The trouble with life is that it is so daily,” my father used to quip. Especially when our culture values us based on what we produce, we can easily feel trapped in the utilitarian, mundane, every day.
But a calling? A calling stirs the deep waters of the soul.
Even the humblest task which must be performed again and again finds purpose when it is in answer to a calling.
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” writes Pastor Frederick Buechner. That sounds wonderful. But what about the days you feel benched, watching the game from the sidelines? Or you see no progress? Or you really aren’t sure what your calling truly is or how to get there?
Perhaps we need to start with what God calls us to do. In Genesis, at the very start of the whole story, He turns to the freshly molded and breathed-on woman and man and says, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
God again speaks clearly to us through Jesus in Matthew 28:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:19-20
The message is clear and uncomplicated—defend and care for the land, the animals, and the people. Disciple the people, as in, show them how to glorify God. The carrying out of that mission can be as mosaic as the people He calls.
Throughout this year, Planting Roots has been encouraging you to ‘take your place at the wall,’ referring to Nehemiah rebuilding the protective wall around Jerusalem in biblical times. It can feel like everyone else has found their calling and they are making visible progress on their part of the building while you are still standing there in a pile of rubble. But in the words of every teacher, “Eyes on your own paper.” Or as one of my husband’s commanders said, ‘Your proximity to the battle does not equal the importance of your contribution to the success of the mission.’ God has not forgotten you.
He uses every simple, humble service done for His glory to build His kingdom.
Whether you are still sorting the stones, or are on sandwich duty for the crew, or those few glorious days where you are setting the top layer into place, your work is answering the call.
Rise Up
Pause Sometimes we don’t even know what would give us “deep gladness” or how the experiences we are having now could ever add to what we think we most want. Talk to the Lord about it all. Submit your desires to Him in a tangible way such as writing a letter to Him and then tucking it away for a few years.
Connect Talk to us! Comment here on when you have seen the Lord use you. Or ask our prayer team to pray for you as you strive to do your work willingly.
Prayer
My Creator and Lord of my day, help me to do what you have called me to do today. May I see your purpose and hand in my life. May I glorify you. Amen.
