What Is Your Answer?

At some point in our life God will call each and every one of us. Whether or not God calls us isn't in question, what is in question is how we answer?

At times I've UNINTENTIONALLY ignored my wife's call to do something or even to stop doing something (that's my story and I'm sticking to it - smile). I've faked sleeping and ignored calls from my children to come outside and play...only a few times so don't go nuclear on me. There are some phone calls that, well, truthfully when I see the caller's name on my phone - let's just say I am too busy to answer the call. Once I even attempted to ignore God's call. So how did that go for me? Have you read the story of Jonah and the Big Fish? Let's just say I'm doing everything in my power to never ignore His call again.

From various stories in God's Word (The Bible) we know that God called Abraham and told him to go - so he went to a foreign land with no master plan. God called Moses - not into the good life but into the very hot frying pan of leading whiny people to a promised land. God called Peter to leave his boat, his nets and his family to go on a journey that made no worldly sense whatsoever. God called the virgin Mary to give birth to the greatest leader (and only Savior) the world will ever know.

So what does being called by God look like? First it is personally addressed, written and delivered to you. Whether the call is to join His family through His Son or it's to serve out the rest of your life as a missionary; God's calling is personal and unique to you, and requires your personal response, your personal attention, your personal time.

God's calling is about giving you a personal passion to accomplish a personal mission...a personal and unique mission that He has set aside for you to complete. By the way, too often we confuse passion with enjoyment. We can be passionate about our God-given mission, while recognizing the mission comes with tasks (and people) that we do not enjoy.

God's love is directly focused on people, therefore His call (mission) to you should be focused on loving others through words, action, and service and irregardless of their status in life.

God's calling will always push you beyond your perceived finite limits. His path for you includes the preparation needed to succeed in your mission. What you learn, how you grow, and where you go can be a tool in your hands to distract you from your mission or a tool in God's hands to equip you for your mission. Case in point pride subtracts from your mission, humility adds to your mission.

God calls you to lead from many different roles (family leader, church leader, community leader, marketplace leader). If you are faithful in His current missional assignments regardless of their worldly level of significance then He knows he can trust you to be faithful with additional missional assignments. And these new assignments from the world's perspective may be larger (or smaller).

Are you a Christ Follower with no mission or are you someone who hasn't answered His call to join His family through His Son? Jesus is calling you now - disrupt your life today by answering His call!