October 16, 2012
Dream Job
I visited with a pastor friend who told me his dream job would be leave
the pulpit and become a missionary. My friend was forthcoming in sharing what
was holding him back, “You can’t become a
missionary without being forced into becoming a fundraiser. If I won the
lottery I’d become a missionary.” He laughed, “But that’s not going to happen because I don’t play the lottery.”
There are Scriptural examples of missionaries financially supporting
themselves, missionaries on the field who are supported by the church and even
disciples being sent out into the field specifically with no support. I think
my pastor friend is well intentioned, but like many of us, we restrict our acts
of service by adding to the job description. The Lord doesn’t ask us to be equipped
as fundraisers before we can be successful fishers of men.
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Gail;
-----When I read about the spiritual gifts at Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12, I’m always inclined to think that an important part of having the gift you have is having the means by which to use it. I consider God’s calling to be the same way. He will always provide the means for doing what He has called His servant to do. But He does not always present those means in the sense or form His servant expects. I think that expectation is the addition to the job description which you note.
-----For years now, I have had two projects simmering on one or another of my burners. I consider them both important and callings, but I just can’t quite bring them to a boil. At times I pine for whatever it is that I lack in being able to make them work. But I do not count them as losses or mistaken intentions. I am always finding another book to read, another piece of relevance in a current event, or another frame of mind which improves and focuses my perspective of the projects’ fundamental purposes and substance. In a sense, the calling to me God is making is being provisioned over the course of time by more study. That's just where I'm at. Many times I have been thankful I had not proceeded because of an important effect I later learned.
-----Often the means for doing what one feels called to do come as a result of the fifteenth step having been the step out in faith after the fourteenth step which did not look so related to the thirteenth step which wasn’t even taken with any particular call of God in mind although the twelfth step definitely was. All the steps are like this and proceed from the first step, also unique. The only things each has in common with the others is the faith in which they are taken that they are either the correct next choice or will be corrected if not, that the choosing was made from the intention to be pleasurable to the Lord, and that the Lord indeed owns them. Proverbs 16:9 “A man’s mind plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.”
-----I most often am convinced that I was called to what I have done; I have been called to what I am doing; I am being called to what I am about to do; and that I will be called to whatever else I will do. They all are like beads on a string. As long as the string is about the Lord, which is the way I plan to proceed, the beads, whatever they are, will provide a pleasing consistency. So the steps from one to the next will receive pretty good direction. Like your pastor friend, there are some beads I think I might like to string into my life, but really, if I don’t plan for them I won’t go there (unless the Lord airmails me there.) If I don’t plan for them, I don’t really consider myself called to them. If I am not called to them, then of course, I will not be provisioned in one manner or another with the means to do them.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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