April 29, 2023 - The Call

     The endocrinologist called this week concerning the thyroid situation.  After consultation with the doctor at Mayo Clinic, they determined that the best plan was to watch and wait.  Another biopsy is scheduled prior to the intended stem cell transplant.   I took that to be positive news.
     I’ve tried to write these blogs only when the Spirit has moved.  As cherished as sleep has been, He moved in the middle of the night.  I got up and obeyed.
     The call of God covers a wide spectrum.  Every unbeliever is called to come to Jesus.  It is not His will that any should perish, but all come to everlasting life.
     There is the call for every disciple to come, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus.
     Within that discipleship there are special callings for blessing and service.  Some are called to be teachers, servants, etc.
     I do believe there is a calling by God on certain individuals that is a deeper call to ministry.  I sensed that call on my life when I was just 17.  God confirmed that call as I was reading one of Paul’s writings when he wrote, “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.”
     I had no interest in a woe from God, but I had little innately that qualified me to preach.   Nervous wouldn’t be close to the ballpark of how I felt the evening of the first sermon I preached.  I still remember backing from the pulpit and saying to God, “You have chosen the wrong guy.”
     I sensed a moving that night of the Holy Spirit that I have sensed most every time I have stood to speak for Jesus since then.  Pretty much every Sunday I pray a similar prayer that says, “Lord, unless you come, I have nothing to offer.”
     God has always called people to get across His plan.  Noah, Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the 12, Paul, and countless servants over the centuries.
     God’s calling isn’t for privilege, it is for responsibility.  God didn’t call me because I was special; He called me because there was something He wanted me to do.
     What precipitated this blog was a breakfast that I had with a dear friend whom I met in a ministry several years ago.  I love him dearly and have had a Paul to Timothy relationship with him.
     He has the complete package.  Handsome, very bright, servant’s heart, and a love for Jesus and others.  His was a promising life, living out God’s special call to ministry.
     But life took a downward turn.  A ministry ended and in my mind he chose to pursue some things of this world instead of the things of God.  Some bad decisions on his part and on others led to a breakup in his marriage and the loss of the closeness with his kids.
     He is about at rock bottom as a person can get. 
     I got a text from him that I sensed was a leading by God for me to meet with him.  God very specifically gave me a message to share with him.
     We shared together, mostly him sharing what was going on in his life.  My heart broke for what he is going through.  As we neared the end of the time that I knew we had before he had to go to work, the Spirit says to me, “Share my word to him.”
     In some way I felt like the prophet Nathan who was sent to King David after David’s sin. 
     Here was God’s word to this man who had such a promising life of ministry.  “God has not rescinded His call on your life.  Paul says in Romans that the call of God is irrevocable.   God is not done with you.  I don’t know when.  I don’t know how.  I don’t know where.  God’s word to you today from me is that God hasn’t given up on you and neither have I.”
     I could tell by the look on his face that he was taken back by God’s word to him.  He obviously didn’t have anything to say in response.  Just a look back to me that I knew he had heard God’s voice, maybe for the first time in quite some time.  And what I saw, in just a very slight glimmer in his eyes, was a maybe a hope that was born again.
     Failure does not disqualify us from the call of God on our lives.  Sometimes God can use the failure redemptively to help others see His great love and grace.  It is often those who experience that grace who are able to come along side of others and offer the same path to the grace they have found.
     In God’s time I pray that will be God’s plan for my dear brother.   I do not believe that God is finished with him, but I am praying that He will use the rock bottom experience of life to help prepare him for what I pray will someday come: the restoration of God’s call on his life. 
     After his denials, Peter experienced that restoration of Jesus’ calling on his life one morning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. God was not finished with him.
     May I live out my calling today, Lord, whatever that looks like in my life.  Maybe even to write a blog in the middle of the night.