calling [again]

so calling seems to be a recurring theme in my blogs lately. big surprise, i'm graduating this semester and don't know what i'm doing with my life... but last night was particularly helpful so i thought i'd share.
last night in small group we talked about the call of abrahm. and i brought up the question of calling. are we called to one specific thing in life? or are we called simply to follow God and within that there are multiple things that we can do. and in discussing that [thanks to guest appearances by bryan carey and isaac barber] we got onto the calls of various biblical characters. so here are some examples of call:

abrahm [genesis 12:1-9] "leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to land I will show you." v.1

so here abrahm was called to just go and God would tell him when to stop. it wasn't a call to go to canaan and then be done, that was all God had for him to do. no, he goes to canaan, there's a famine, he goes to egypt, almost gets killed, goes back to canaan, saves his nephew, has a son, almost sacrifices his son, etc. so it's not just one thing. if you look at the big picture, yes, he just ends up back in canaan in the end. but is that the important fact when you look at his life as an individual? is it the final destination or is it the journey that is important when you look at the scale of the individual?

isaiah [isaiah 6:1-13] "whom shall I send? and who will go for Us?" v.8

with isaiah there is a recognizable need. God needs someone to go for Him to proclaim the word to israel. isaiah, in his vision sees this need and rather than waiting for one of the angels to speak up or worrying that he wouldn't have the words to say, he steps up and says "here i am, send me!" he doesn't know what he's supposed to say, doesn't know the logistics, God fills in those details later. isaiah recognizes a need and steps in to fill that need as best as he can. and God provides him guidance as he goes.

jeremiah [jeremiah 1:4-12] "before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." v.5

jeremiah seems very unsure of himself. God comes down and says i set you up for this before you were even born! you were made for this, don't doubt yourself. but jeremiah replies that he is only a child and doesn't know how to speak. God tells him not to say that, if I made you to be a prophet don't you think i'll take care of you being able? so God is validating jeremiah's call and his identity here when he worries that he isn't good enough for the calling he's recieved.

so in all of these calls God says to just start going, He'll fill in the details as you go. there's no plan laid out before the start of the journey, it's like walking with a candle in the dark, you can only see far enough ahead for a few steps. so when God gives me a direction i need to just start going and let him fill in the details. now if only i could get that direction...

help yourself

so on saturday, i went with my church to bring sack lunches to Union Mission, the homeless shelter in norfolk. I got to sit down and talk with a guy briefly with a guy who i overheard talking about how he has just gotten an apartment and was going to be getting out of the homeless shelter this weekend.

the first thing he said to me was "you know something, God helps those who help themselves." and we went on to talk about how he's worked to get himself off the streets and get back on his feet.

i think that was exactly the thing i needed to hear.

i've been sitting around, feeling sorry for myself for not knowing what i want to do when i graduate, when i should be working to give myself options. not just waiting for the perfect opportunity to drop into my lap.

this guy had been into drugs, in jail, and on the street, but he's working to get out from that.
i need to work toward my future, not expect it to be provided for me.

i need to help myself

calling?

So it's been a while since i've posted one of these, so i dont know if anybody even looks at this anymore, but here we go anyways....

Calling is a word that's thrown around pretty commonly in the 'christian vocabulary.'
"God calls us to do ______"
"I feel called to ______ ministry"
But what does calling mean? What does calling look like?
Does God call us into specific things, like into a particular job or a particular ministry? Or is God's calling simply that we should follow him in whatever we do and let us fill in the details?

In the first instance, I've known a lot of people who have 'felt called into ministry' or 'called into the workforce.' I'm not trying to dispute what those people have felt, but i've never felt God telling me in some sort of prophetic manner what i'm supposed to do with my life. It would be a lot easier for me if He would just tell me what to do once i graduate, cause i'm lost. I dont feel 'called' to anything or anywhere in particular when i graduate, and that's how i've been feeling for the better part of a year now.

So that brings me to the second idea of calling, the idea that we are simply called to follow God in whatever profession we chose for ourselves, be it in the workforce, in the ministry, whatever. This idea resonates with me a little better, just because we are to be children of God first and foremost in whatever we do. However, that still doesn't help me figure out what i want to do when i graduate, but there is a difference in where each idea of calling puts me. Am i trying to figure out what i am supposed to do when i graduate, or do i have to figure out what i want to do when i graduate.

But i'm still not sure if there's something that i'm supposed to be doing, that i'm called to do. So as i continue to wrestle with this, any input would of course be helpful. Grace and peace.