2.3 The Reason for Your Call

[Maria]

I definitely pursued something with the wrong motives. When I was 10 I got baptized I thought that I was doing it for the right reasons but looking back on it I just wanted to be accepted and able to know that I belonged in the church. And after a couple years I noticed and asked my pastor what to do and they said to read my Bible more and trying to seek God out as much as I could I just didn’t know how. But I’m glad that the conviction was placed on my heart because I wouldn’t be sitting here now if I was the way I was when I got baptized. I’m very thankful for my elders in the church, and even the friends that I have around me to teach me about the Bible even today so I’m very thankful for that.

[ECO]

Nice observation Maria. It is wonderful to see how your desire to grow is what fueled your need to get mentorship from your youth pastors. Sometimes young people can do things for the wrong reasons, but in this story, it is evident that you learned what it means to seek God for yourself!

[Gerry]

In what ways have you pursued something with the wrong motive?

After walking away from our Lord for a few years, due to God’s persistance I rededicated my life to Him in February 1991. With this new found faith and love I pursued God and His calling with gusto, but not too much wisdom. Earlier in this course, we spoke of the fact that often, our own view of self can be predominately based upon our experiences, be that for good or for bad. Many of the poor life experiences I had prior to coming to Jesus most definitely formed the view of myself. As I translated these erroneous view to my relationship with God, God was a tireless task master who I was forever trying to gain approval and acceptance from. One area that was good yet had the ability to feed into this erroneous view was the ministry of Keith Green the musician from the 80’s. Keith had a very strong message steeped in the view that we must always give our all for God. Now couple that reality with my false view of myself and what I got was possibly doing the right thing without His guidance and for the wrong reasons. With this in mind, I left a stable job I had at the time and completed a YWAM DTS at Last Days Ministries, a ministry founded by Keith and Melody Green. God did some fantastic work in me during the close to four years I spent at LDM. Prior to joining LDM, I was convinced that God called me to be a missionary to the nations, in particular Russia. After I completed the academic portion of our DTS, our outreach was to minister in Tuapse, Southern Russia on the Black Sea. During the month and a half I was convinced that He was confirming this call to missions, so upon returning to Texas I applied and was accepted as a staff member of LDM. These were really some wonderful times in my life and I have no regrets, yet if I am to be honest with anyone including myself, I can say with almost complete certainty that my motives for being involved in missions was not to reach the unreached, however noble this pursuit is. My real motivation that I was chasing was God’s acceptance and approval.

Now I’m not saying that God has not called me into missions now or then. Though I can now say with confidence that as God is developing His call within me, it’s going to be a result of a properly aligned very primarily of God and secondly of myself. A few years back (20 or more, I forget) I was reading a book by John Eldridge. In this book, John when mentioning our call quoted Howard Thurman who said “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” This thought has stuck with me all these years later and I can confidently say that what ever I do I’ll know it as God’s by the fruit of coming fully alive.

Gerry Barclay

[ECO]

@GerryB your quote from John Eldridge reminds me of this one from Frederick Buechner: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” Sometimes we think doing God’s work means we need to do something we don’t like, but I believe that God’s call is for our “gladness” as well.

[Karlena]

I think the basic answer to this question is that sometimes I have been too quick to say “Yes” when someone asks me to do something, mostly because I hate to disappoint people. However, I have learned over the years (and am still continuing to be aware) that saying “No” to something means saying “Yes” to something else. Priorities have got to be aligned well and a very clear sense of vision.