I listened to someone share a devotional with a group two weeks ago. I wish she hadn't. On the other hand, I am glad she did because, once I got past that sick-feeling welling up inside, it made me think. A few notes I jotted down from the devotional are:
Your call is a journey, not a destination.
You will have obstacles and roadblocks: make a U-turn then search out a new path.
Find pursuits in which you are passionate.
I'm guilty. I've said things similar, I believe: We are all on the journey and all in process. And this is true. But when these thoughts and words are brought to their logical conclusion, we get mixed up. Yes, God teaches and refines us in the process-- on the journey-- while He guides and disciplines us. Are these words so familiar to us that we don't ask the obvious: what is the process? what is the journey? I have not even defined those words, but most people familiar with Christian-ese probably don't need a definition. However, I would caution that most people who watch Oprah would not question what the journey or process is either. We need to be careful that our journey with Christ does not become our own, as a "Christian" author suggested in the aformentioned devotional reading.
Your call is not a journey. Our call from God is clear. Your call is a destination.
There are numerous Biblical examples of God calling people with a specific goal in mind. None may be more familiar to us than God calling His people out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. God had a clear call, a clear direction and clear guidance (God's GPS was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night). Miracles were daily on the Israelites journey, great moments for God's people to be in fear of God, in awe of God, and in never-ending praise of God-- all on their journey towards the Promised Land. And God led them directly there.
Upon arrival, they hit a God-sized roadblock: the inhabitants in the land were giant and scary. So, instead of letting the Creator God of the universe take out the obstacle (indeed no obstacle for Him), they followed the advice we hear today: You will have obstacles and roadblocks: make a U-turn then search out a new path. Now they were no longer on a journey, but a forty year wandering in the misery of a desert. When we take our own path, we too begin a wandering of misery-- that is not God's journey. God's plan was a destination and He provided the means and the way.
Among other callings, perhaps the most important we are called to "Be holy because I [God] am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). This, of course, is even more impossible for us than a few million Hebrew men, women, and children, escaping Pharoah, crossing the Red Sea and conquering the Promised Land. But it is our calling. And our call is a destination. "Be holy because I am holy."
The only holy man is Christ Jesus. Therefore, He is our goal. He is our calling. He is our destination. We are not holy without being covered by Christ's shed blood. There is no reconciliation with God without Jesus Christ. Dying to self and living for Christ is giving up the wandering of our path for the road that leads straight to the cross of Christ. There is joy and suffering on that journey, in which God lovingly refines us. But beware of thinking that the journey is the call. We have a destination.
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13-14
