The Phone Is Ringing

Hebrews 5:1-10

Someone asked me the other day why I'm interested in becoming a minister. I answered "I just feel called to become one." The look on this person's face was priceless as the eyebrows furrowed and nose crinkled just as the word, "huh?" came through pursed lips.

Being called is not easily defined in today's culture. Many of us fall into our career choices. We have gifts we understand to be unique or we have desires we hope to achieve or we follow the paths laid before us in education and end up somewhere we feel happy, or not, as a career.

We become firefighters, office managers, mechanics, engineers, computer programmers, fry cooks, and/or retail managers because of where we end up or because of where we're taken. This is what I would define as being led by events and people along your journey into a life's choice that economically befits your chosen lifestyle. The dictionary can better define a career than I could ever hope to: an occupation or profession, especially one requiring special training followed as one's lifework.

A calling is more like a vocation, which is similarly defined as a career with one twist; a strong impulse to follow one's lifework. If you become a firefighter it's because deep inside you feel the need to save lives. If you become a mechanic it's because you have a passion to keep cars in their best condition in order that those driving them are ensured safety. If you become a retail manager it's because within you lays the desire to accomplish goals with and through the help of others. 

Becoming a minister, to me, is a deep desire to share in the journey of those around me in order that a relationship with God, one another, and themselves can become a reality. Becoming a minister is a calling and the call comes from my God. All that my life is, everything which has provided me with the abilities I posses, has prepared me for what will become my lifework and it all comes from God.

It's taken me a while to answer this call. For some reason every time the "phone" rang I saw the caller ID and decided to ignore it. Now that I've answered the call there's a new life which has been born within me. It's been a long journey, one filled with many life lessons. I thank God everyday that I've come through all of that and into a place where the lessons I've learned can best be used to help others.

Wait, what's that noise. Sorry, gotta go...the phone is ringing.