THE CALL

Check this out! I’ve been listening to excellent pod casts of Rob Bell and Erwin McManus interviews from this very cool online magazine: Catalyst Monthly

Today’s Proverb:  Those who trust in their own wits are fools;...(insert long pause)
But those who walk in wisdom come through safely. (Provs. 29:26 NRSV)

Here are some of my favorite quotes from The Call (see posting below for link.)  They are a bit random out of context and only a small percentage of the lines which I highlighted as I read.  Maybe they will draw you to actually reading this book! Emphasis is mine.

Call it the greatest good, the ultimate end, the meaning of life, or whatever you choose. Negotiating the changes feels longer and worse than the changes themselves because transition challenges our sense of personal meaning.

Only when we respond to Christ and follow his call do we become our real selves and come to have personalities of our own.  Unsure of ourselves, we are sure of God.

…our jobs come to define us and give us our identities.  We become what we do. (! BUT…) Calling reverses such thinking. Instead of, “You are what you do,” calling says: “Do what you are.”  The truth is not that God is finding us a place for our gifts but that God has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing-and we will only be ourselves when we are finally there.

…a clear sense of calling comes only through a time of searching, including trial and error…God’s complete designs for us are never fully understood, let alone fulfilled, in this life.

(The disciples) simply heard and obeyed.  The call is all. Jesus is the reason.  Disciples are not so much those who follow as those who must follow.

Our calling is the sphere of our responsibility. But we are not responsible to our calling. We are responsible to God, and our calling is where we exercise that responsibility.

Keep alive an appreciation of the corporatness of the life of faith and we remain true not only to our calling but also to the full reality of humanness.

…calling reminds us that to be a ‘follower of the way’ is to see life as a journey; which, while we are still alive on the earth, is an incomplete journey that cannot be finally assessed.  

The reverse side of calling is the temptation of conceit.   But, what we really need is a daily challenge to ourselves, a reminder as regular as looking in the mirror.  Do we feel the wonder of being called?  It is all a gift and all of grace.  

Challenged, inspired, rebuked, and encouraged by God’s call, we cannot for a moment settle down to the comfortable, the mediocre, the banal, and the boring. God has called us, and we are never more ourselves than when we are fully stretched in answering. There is no yawning in response to this call. (!)

There is no god but God and no rest for anyone who has any god but God.  God is on the move.  Faith therefore means restlessness.

If you made it all the way through, I’d love to hear your thoughts.