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September 2001 Table of Contents
Understanding and Confirming Your Call
From Whinning to Winning
(Part 1 of 4)
By Randall L. Hays, M.D.
Minister of Music and Worship
Willow Point Baptist Church
Shreveport, Louisiana
"Love your calling with passion, it is the meaning of your life!"-Rodin
Author's Note: From time to time, it serves us well to revisit those peak decision points in our life…those landmark times where God confirms His plan and solidifies His purpose. Those are times where passion originates and we know we have no option as God's child except to be obedient. I encourage you to consider God's plan for your life as you read. There are different calls for different seasons. As you read, consider not just your vocational call, but possibly where God may be leading in your current ministry or otherwise. As with other successes, going on with God is a journey and not a destination. It is my prayer that this series of articles will help you understand your personal journey and in so doing, give clarity concerning His "next step" for you.
It was a day like many I am sure you have experienced. I arrived at the church with my "to do" list in my head. It was an extensive list, but one particular deadline was quickly approaching and I attempted to focus on the tyranny of the urgent. That task was to organize my thoughts for the Ohio State Worship Leaders Conference where I had been asked to speak on the subject of this article…Understanding and Confirming Your Call. Actually, my friend, Art Fulks, who was leading and organizing this conference, and I had discussed my sharing on Bi-Vocational Ministry. When I received the agenda, I was somewhat surprised to see the additional assignment that awaited me. So, as I contemplated what to say, I suppose my attitude was…"been there, done that" and it should be easy enough. I began to casually study, research, read, think, and finally, write. I had not yet fully comprehended the journey that God had planned for me as He awaited my obedience to this divine appointment.
Do you remember playing in the back yard as a child? On some days, somewhere around five or six o'clock would come the dreaded words from the back door of my home, "come inside and wash up, it's almost time to eat." Often, that announcement was met with an attitude of "she will call again when it gets closer, I've still got time to play." Then the second call would come. This time with a little more urgency, but I was not fully convinced that my free time was over. You know the rest of the story. The third call was a different tone. This time, it was not the voice of my mom, the friend, but it was the voice of my mom, the authority. The inflection of the voice alone allowed me to know that my options had immediately ceased. Only then, did my correct response and obedience ensue. At this point in the evening, anything less than complete and total obedience, was disobedience! A pastor friend of mine says it this way, "delayed obedience is disobedience." What is involved in the process of being obedient to God's call upon our lives? Let's examine that question.
In the fall of 1997, I wrote for this publication discussing Bi-Vocational Ministry. In that article, this statement appears…"the call is the foundation upon which all of the remainder of the person's ministry is built. It is the cornerstone of success!" Before we can give ten reasons for stopping, we must give ONE reason for starting and it must be the clarion call of God in and upon our life. It's like buttoning a vest, if you start wrong, you will end wrong and while there were certain aspects of my personal journey that were clear to me, the actual Biblical principles of that calling were only partially understood. After all, the process of yielding to a vocational call in my life that involved music ministry and medicine was an arduous one. As long as I kept God in my box, everything was great. The process of understanding, let alone confirming, that call was a bit overwhelming for me as a fourteen-year-old. In fact, it was only as a twenty-six year old man with a M.D. (which, by the way, stands for "many debts") behind my name, that I was able to get a grasp on what God had planned.
As I reflect, much of my dilemma was distinguishing between a call, a need and a desire. To be honest, I still struggle with it! How much have you done today because you simply wanted to do it or because it needed to be done? As I look around me, there are many things that NEED to be done and there are many things that I DESIRE to be done. However, there are only a few things that I MUST do. These things must be done because God has called us to do them and there is no other person called to that place for "such a time as this." It is much like the Geometry analogy…if we take care of the center, the circumference will take care of itself.
So, as I studied on that rainy, January day, God took me to Judges, Chapters 6 & 7. You remember the story…the children of Israel had been delivered into the hands of the Midianites for a season. The Midianites were oppressing the Israelites and they began to cry out to God for help. That is when the "Angel of the Lord" appeared to Gideon as he was working in the winepress. Through a series of events that followed, God used Gideon in miraculous ways to deliver the Israelites from their oppression. When examined in greater detail, these chapters reveal some incredible truths about how God dealt with Gideon and how He used Gideon to deliver His people.
In this series of articles, we'll look at four things:
1) Gideon's Attitude – (he was taking action)
2) Gideon's Affirmation – (from God)
3) Gideon's Actions – (he made a commitment)
4) Gideon's Acceptance – (of risk)
In this particular article, let's take a closer look at Gideon's attitude. The Israelites were not just being held captive by the Midianites. They were actually being oppressed. They were forced into hiding. Their crops and livestock were being stolen by the Midianites. Their land was being destroyed. They were "greatly impoverished" (Judges 6:6 NKJV). But, in verse 11 of that same chapter, we find Gideon threshing wheat…"in order to hide it from the Midianites." What exactly was Gideon doing? Yes, he was "threshing wheat," but more than that, he was doing what he knew to do, when he knew to do it, and where God had placed him! A calling by God always begins with responsibility! Thomas Buckner said, "To bring one's self to a frame of mind and to the proper energy to accomplish things that require plain hard work continuously is the one big battle that everyone has. When this battle is won for all time, then everything else is easy." It's the small things that prepare us for the big things. Most of us want the product without the process and consequently, we place all of our attention on the product.
Several summers ago we were going water skiing with friends on a regular basis. After a couple of trips, I noticed that Sissy (the mother of the other family) never wanted to ski. One day I asked her if she had ever tried it. Her response to me was humorous. She replied, "Yeah, I tried it once but in attempting to get up, I couldn't tell if I was skiing or if I was drowning." Everyone who has learned to water ski can identify with that comment! It's a task getting out of the water, but once we are finished "swallowing the lake," it's not extremely difficult. John Maxwell calls it "The Law of Momentum." It's much easier to develop momentum toward any project or call when we are moving. Sometimes it is getting started that causes the resistance. An old Chinese proverb says, "Don't be afraid of going slowly; be afraid of standing still." One experience at a parking meter should remind you and me that standing still costs us something. No one ever developed momentum standing still! God did not find Gideon standing still! He was active and going about the process of what God had called him to do.
Certainly there are other places in God's Word where He places an emphasis on fruitfulness. (Why does the church so often seem to place emphasis on faithfulness instead of fruitfulness?) Look at the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. God said because the servant was faithful (and fruitful because he multiplied the talents), He would promote him!
My friend, associate, and co-leader in ministry, Nicholas Costello, shared with me a simple illustration. It is this…"The devil will make a way and tell you to go. Jesus will tell you to go and then make a way." Isn't that what God also did with Abraham? In Genesis 12 the Lord said to Abram (later to be renamed Abraham), "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I WILL (future tense) show you." There it is! God said go and then He made the way. (By the way, Abraham was nearly 80 years old at that time, so that takes care of some of our excuses.) We have a responsibility to be obedient, faithful and fruitful to our current call.
A couple of summers ago, my five-year old son Harrison and I were doing yard work. He is a very industrious and unrelenting helper. I had become so frustrated with my inadequate tools that, out of frustration, I went to the local Lowe's and bought myself some powered hedge trimmers. These were not the ordinary hedge trimmers. I mean these were heavy-duty trimmers that would get the job done! I was busy putting that purchase to good use in spite of Harrison's continuous plea to use them. (Of course, I knew that they were dangerous to him.) After being consumed in my task, I looked around and found Harrison down on the ground with a small set of toy plastic scissors. He was consumed with trimming the grass around the edging of our flowerbed. You see, though I had withheld from him that which he was not equipped to handle, he was busy doing what he knew and was equipped to do. Do you know what happened next in our front yard? Harrison was given the opportunity to hold the hedge trimmers (but only with my help and constant supervision) and was rewarded for his tenacity and intended productivity. Isn't that the nature of God? He will always reward obedience! Matthew 7:11 says, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" Yes, there may be times in our life where out of His goodness and grace God gives us the product before the process. But, He is much more likely to reward our obedience with an explanation than He is to give an explanation to encourage our obedience.
The Angel of the Lord called Gideon a "mighty man of valor." Why? Was it because he was risking his life by defying the Midianites? Was it because he had been faithful over the "few" things God had assigned to him? Was it because he was being responsible to provide for his family and stay with the last thing God had told him? I say yes to all three questions because they all show Gideon's willingness to take action! Maybe his willingness to take action and responsibility opened the door for God to ask him to step up to a whole new level of responsibility. Napoleon Hill once said, "it's not what you are going to do, but it's what you are doing now that counts."
Webster defines a challenge as "the quality of requiring full use of one's abilities, energy or resources." There are certainly times in my life where remaining focused requires my entire ability, energy and resource. The goal of fully understanding, confirming and operating within God's call upon my life is often a challenge. I have come to understand that resting in that call means that the blessing comes with endurance. II Timothy 4:2 exhorts us to "be ready in season and out of season." The Message simply says, "keep on your watch." My prayer is that through the process of understanding and confirming our call, we will be diligent in the things that we MUST do. That will require our focus, ability, energy and resources to be obedient, faithful AND fruitful in our current circumstances.
Next quarter, we will explore the MULTIPLE circumstances where God affirmed Gideon. That study is sure to encourage you!
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