Called

Chapter 1

What Is a Calling, and Do I Have One?

But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel, Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine!

—Isaiah 43:1 (NASB)

God did not direct His call to Isaiah—Isaiah overheard

God saying, Who will go for us? The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude.

—Oswald Chambers,

My Utmost for His Highest

What Is It?

Calling. What does it mean, and why do we chase after this seemingly elusive urge toward a particular way of life or career? At least that’s how the Oxford Pocket Dictionary defines it. We all desire to do something meaningful, to make a difference in the lives of others, or to realize some dream that has a grip on our heart so intense that the longer it is suppressed the more we want it to become a reality. Now hear me out, I believe a calling is very different from a childhood fantasy of becoming a professional athlete, a Hollywood icon, or a multimillionaire.

There were many things I aspired to be as a child. I remember wanting to be a pediatrician at one point in my adolescence. When I was in the fourth grade, I wanted to be the first female president. When I was in high school, I was inspired by my own calculus teacher to pass the love of mathematics he ignited in me on to many other high school seniors as I pursued a degree in mathematics as a college student. Interestingly enough, however, my very first memory of what I wanted to be when I grew up occurred as a preschooler when I wanted to live in a trailer in my parents’ backyard and be their cleaning lady and repair swing sets on the side.

Many may see a calling and a job as one and the same, and that very well may be true for you; however, a calling, in its very name, implies beckoning, invitation, and an ongoing urging toward something that provides more than a paycheck. It provides meaning, significance, and a fulfillment of something greater than ourselves. It seems elusive at times because it is bigger than what we can fathom, and it seems harder to achieve than anything we’ve ever done before. It is beyond our realm of possibility. That, my friend, is why it is a calling. It is not something we desire. It is something God desires for us. God tells us in His Word,

Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26)

When something seems impossible in our own strength, it really is God possible. A good friend of mine, Jan Winey, once told me to look at the word impossible and to tell her what the first two letters were. After looking at her rather oddly (since I would think she’d not need my help to come up with the answer to that question), I said, I . . . M. She proceeded to ask me what contraction I could make with those two letters, to which I answered very confidently, I’m. Jan took it a step further and asked, What does I’m stand for? Without hesitation, I said, I am. She concluded this word picture with the most profound question thus far in her rhetorical interrogation: Tabitha, who is the Great I AM? I felt like Peter when Jesus himself asked him, But what about you? Who do you say that I am? I looked at my dear friend, Bible study teacher, and mentor, and I said, God. And just like a 3-D image jumps off the page, Jan said, Exactly. We see something as IMpossible, but God sees the same thing as GODpossible.

We see this powerful word again in scripture. This time, God tells us pleasing Him is an impossible endeavor without faith. Yet again, in our own ability, plagued with our human response to doubt, it is impossible to please Him; however, with supernatural faith that comes only from the Great I AM, we are able to take part in not only the possibility of pleasing of our Lord, but the reality of that effort. We are able to receive the favor of His rewards when our faith in Him is coupled with a chasing after Him earnestly and sincerely.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)

Another good friend of mine (Although I have never met her personally, I feel like I know her very well.) is Ann VosKamp, author of One Thousand Gifts and the blog A Holy Experience. I have been following Ann’s blog for years now, and I love her gift of using the written word as a true art form. She is able to emotionally illicit a response by creating imagery that transports from the page or computer screen right to her reader’s heart. I love the way Ann explained calling in a blog post entitled How Not to Miss Your Real-Life Calling:

We want clarity—and God gives a call. We want a road map—and God gives a relationship. We want answers—and God gives His hand . . . God didn’t give Abraham a map—He gave Abraham a relationship. He doesn’t want you to lean on a guidebook. God wants you to lean on the Guide—who speaks to you through His Book. Why would God give a map—when He wants to give you Himself? We need the person of God more than we need the plan for our life . . . And career. Career, it comes from the French word carriere meaning road or a highway, and a career is about well-marked roads and clear fences and mapping out your life, following the chart, focused on these goals. A career is about the guidebook and a calling is about leaning on the Guide who speaks to you through His Book. A career is about making a plan, and a calling is about trusting a Person who changes the plan. Grace, that careers can fall way to callings. The call that thing one keeps listening for and the heart of faith is the ear . . . This is the way for you—not her way, not their way—but My Way for You . . . I have to stay close enough to the Word to hear my Father’s voice.

We have to stay so close to Jesus so we don’t miss it. Our faith must be in Him, not in our own gifts or abilities, but in Christ alone. He calls, and He equips. He leads, and He makes straight the paths He will take us down. When we get ahead of His timing, try to navigate without His leading, or veer off course, we are in danger. We find ourselves away from the guide and without a guide, we quickly become lost, frustrated, going in circles, and lacking true fulfillment in our lives.

When I hear the word calling, it causes me to think of a couple of different things. A calling can be a beckoning of sorts. I call my children for dinner. I call my best friend, Dee, who lives 1,500 miles away, on the phone at least once a week. I call a restaurant to make reservations, or a teacher calls on a student to answer a question. The Robertsons have built a dynasty by manufacturing duck calls designed for the sole purpose of luring ducks towards a hunter. God’s word says in Matthew 11:15, Whoever has ears, let them hear. God wants us to hear Him when He calls. He wants His voice to penetrate our hearts instead of being distracted by the many other voices in the world. In order to demonstrate that we are doing just that, we have to live out another verse about hearing, which takes it a step further. James 1:22 says, Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Obedience is the key to not just hearing the call, but answering it as well.

A calling can also be a label. I have several different things people call me throughout the day. My husband calls me Babe. My children call me Mommy. (My oldest has just asked for permission to call me Mom.) Some of the kids I have taught call me Mrs. Deller. Others can label you based on your reputation. She’s a great listener, or she is an accomplished pianist. Not all labels are positive and encouraging. She is a worrier, or she is very scatterbrained. We have all been called many things throughout our life, probably many of them with good connotations; however, several of them may have been very negative in nature. Just the other day, I was driving somewhere and a very familiar song came on the radio. Now, I had heard the song several times before. It’s hard not to recognize its tune, being that it is so catchy and has a very upbeat tempo. The song echoes the same message God has been speaking to my heart and urging me to convey to yours in this chapter. We have to trade all the labels the world the puts on us for the redeeming, powerful words we find in His Word that define us. We are holy, righteous, and redeemed, because God has already won the war and has defeated every possible negative label we could place on ourselves. He is far greater than a label. The power of His love gained its power by His shed blood. By that power, His love not only covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), it covers any label contrary to what He says about us. When we start believing this greater truth, we can start living a life worthy of the calling.

Yes, there are many adjectives and labels that could describe us at any given time in our lives. Sometimes they are negative. We are called tired, worn-out, shameful, wounded, neglected, hurt, alone, or sad, but praise God those labels don’t define who we are. We are greater because we have been redeemed. We are made in His image. We reflect His glory. God loved us so much that He sent his son, Jesus, to die a criminal death so that we would be free from the bondage of sin and shame. That’s right, I said sin and shame. God’s desire for us is to live our lives above the labels of the world. He has called us. The enemy will use many of the world’s labels for us to try and thwart God’s call on our lives. But remember, Greater is the one living inside of me, than he who is living in the world.

Do I Have One?

Yes, yes, yes! Are you breathing? Do you have a pulse? If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you can answer yes to the question Do I have a calling? Yes, you do have a calling, and God wants you to know it more than you want to discover it for yourself. God says in His Word,

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11)

In Brennan Manning’s book The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God’s Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives, he says, Everybody has a vocation to some form of life-work. However, behind that call (and deeper than any call), everybody has a vocation to be a person to be fully and deeply human in Christ Jesus.

I guess I could just end the chapter right here being that we have both defined calling and determined that everyone has a calling (at least that’s what I have gathered in my personal walk with the Lord as I dig deeper into His Word), but I think it’s deeper than just answering yes. It’s knowing why you have a calling that will motivate you to figure out the details of what it is. You may not have pastor, evangelist, or missionary in front of your name, but you are a child of God; and according to His Word, all children of God are charged with the Great Commission. How can we fulfill the Great Commission if we are not about His work and His kingdom? Whether or not we’re getting paid to do it, there’s work to be done. There’s a charge that has been given. We have to learn to listen to God’s voice so we don’t miss an opportunity to obey the call He has placed on our lives.

Just last week, the boys and I made our annual trek to Maryland for our third inaugural applesauce making day with my sister-in-law and her three children. This day is always full of fun, as we are very regimented in the task at hand, that is turning three bushels of apples into sweet, juicy, colorful applesauce. The kids actually love the work and effort it takes to convert the many varieties of apples we choose to a tasty treat they can enjoy for months to come. The boys and I select a bushel and a half of apples (usually the seconds) from orchards near our house, and my sister-in-law chooses a bushel and a half of apples from an orchard local to her. We always make sure to select a variety of apples for the purpose of ensuring that some of our jars are yellow in color and others are pink, but another benefit is that our applesauce will be full of flavor.

There is no exact recipe for our applesauce. We don’t add anything else to it. We just pick the apples. The apples don’t have to grow on special trees. In fact, many of them were labeled seconds, the ones that were not as good as the first crop. These are the ones the orchard owners will mark down and throw away if no one takes them. The apples don’t have to do anything. These apples just hang from a tree and ripen. Then they just have to be picked, cut, boiled, and pressed through the strainer so that all the impurities, seeds, stems, and skins are removed. After this process, the finished product is a palatable applesauce preserved and canned and useful to provide nourishment and satisfaction to our bodies.

Little did these apples know that they would be turned into delicious applesauce one day. They did not know the grueling and painful process that they’d have to go through to become this tasty treat. I realize apples are not people and really have no ability to answer a call or fulfill their purpose or even feel the pain of the process of becoming applesauce. The metaphor just struck me as an example of this idea of pursuit of a calling no matter the cost.

My husband is answering the call this weekend. He was called to be a father in 2000 when I became pregnant with our first child. This weekend, he is with our second born at a mountain cabin going through Family Life’s Passport to Purity. This is not just a birds and the bees talk, but a quality one on one adventure, complete with five hands on projects that illustrate the dangers of sex before marriage and other relational situations. These illustrated lessons coincide with the lessons on CD they listen to, think through, discuss, and answer questions about. Each boy has a journal to keep, and finally, he receives a passport to honor him as he makes this very important step forward in the journey of becoming a man. Answering this call is not for the faint of heart and requires preparation, honesty, and transparency—three things that quite honestly are atypical of the average male.

And that, my friend, is what it takes to answer the call. It takes being willing to do the hard thing when required. It means being sacrificial and giving up maybe what we want to do for what God wants us to do. Instead of just hanging on that tree and falling off when we become too ripe, God wants to hand pick us, prepare us, and make us into a tasty treat that will nourish many lives.

I love Elena Pasquali’s children’s book The Three Trees. It’s a delightful story about three forest trees that dream of what they will be one day. One dreams of becoming a royal throne, one of being a mighty ship that can withstand the strongest of storms, and the other wants to stay in the forest and grow very tall. When they are finally cut down, they feel like their dreams are over. However, their ultimate call has not yet been realized. Each tree is then crafted into a new thing. The first becomes a manger for baby Jesus. Little did he know that in reality he would be a throne for a king. The next becomes a fishing boat, the very boat that Jesus and his disciples were aboard when Jesus calmed the storm. Unbeknownst to him, he was a mighty ship and he did withstand a strong storm. The final tree became an old rugged cross—the very cross that stood tall on Calvary’s hill and held our Savior, Jesus, as He fulfilled His ultimate call to be born, live a perfect life, die and be raised again so that we might be saved.

So a calling is a purpose for living. A calling was issued by God to every believer from the beginning of time. His ultimate plan and purpose was to give us free will so it was our choice to enter into a relationship with Him. He gave us a way to enter into that relationship through the plan of salvation He established as He sent His Son, Jesus, to save us. Throughout time, He has made His call known to men and women in the Bible in very specific ways. He told the prophet Jeremiah,

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. (Jeremiah 1:5)

He asked Noah to build an ark. He called Nehemiah to rebuild a city wall. He challenged Esther to stand up to a king and save her people, and she answered that call knowing for such a time is this. (Esther 4:14). He called Moses to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. In Luke 1:30–38, His call on Mary’s life and her acceptance of that call is crystal clear:

But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.

How will this be, Mary asked the angel, since I am a virgin?

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and