The Highest Calling

When reading about missionaries or other Christians who were used by God in powerful ways, it’s easy to be swept up by the impact of their lives. Sometimes we find ourselves comparing our lives to theirs and believing we fall short. It’s easy to look at people who were pastors, missionaries, and evangelists and view their lives as having more impact than ours.

As a little kid, my dream was to be a missionary to Africa when I grew up. After reading the book, Evidence Not Seen, when I was eighteen, the dream was sparked again and for the next two years I prayed, researched and prayed again to make it happen.

Spending my life sharing the Good News with those who have never heard it before seemed to be the highest calling a person could have. After all, wouldn’t that be the completely sold out, surrendered life?

While I felt a tug on my heart to be a missionary, I also began seeing how God was not letting that door open. One instance where this was confirmed occurred when I spoke with an advisor from a missionary university in Minnesota. I was still unsure if God was leading me in the direction of missions or if this was me trying to make it happen.

The advisor told me to think and pray about it some more and promised to call me back after New Year’s. I decided if she reached out again, that would be a confirmation God was leading me there. So I waited. New Year's eventually came and went. The call never came.

For a year I wrestled with God. I thought I was leaving the choice up to Him, but in reality, I was wondering why He wasn’t making it happen.

That summer, I read The Calling of Dan Matthews; a historical fiction about a man who became a pastor because he believed it was the highest calling for a person’s life. Through various failures and struggles in the story, he comes to the realization that God had not called him to be a pastor after all. While he believed it was the highest and holiest calling, Dan realizes that any job a man undertakes is holy, to the degree that God is in it.

I have to admit; when I first read this, I was skeptical. How could just any job be holy?

After weeks of mulling it over, it all came to me on what I call my “mountaintop experience” (since I was sitting on a mountain at the time. :) My family was up in Prescott for my sister’s engagement, and we were spending the evening at Watson Lake. I climbed to a lookout point on the mountain to sit and talk with God as the sun descended. I wrote about the experience afterwards:

“Where do I begin to get my thoughts out? Let’s just say I have slowly been coming to this realization that Dan had from the book. While God calls each of us to different things, somehow I always thought that to do something great for God and to commit my whole life to Him meant going into some kind of ministry, or more specifically becoming a missionary, but God has slowly been revealing to me something different and profound. I thought the ultimate calling was to forsake a "normal life" and the ready comforts that the world had to offer to devote myself to bringing the Gospel to those who have never heard it before.

In the book, Dan realized that any other calling is just as sacred and high, ‘to the degree that God is in it.’ God has shown me that this is the key. You could be a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker and it still be as high and devoted a calling for God’s kingdom as a pastor or those who bring the Gospel to distant lands. How? When God is the center of it. The profession doesn’t matter as much as the person behind it. Is he or she an ambassador for Christ? Are they working as unto the Lord and making Him known by their life?

As I sat on the mountain and processed these things, I began talking everything out with God. I told Him if it was His will for me to stay in the U.S. for the rest of my life, I was okay with that. I truly was. His will be done.

After wrestling for so long, I opened my heart and my plans to the Lord in complete surrender and finally felt a peace about it, because God still owned every part of my life. Having “missionary” as my occupation did not make my life completely His. It already was.

Whatever the Lord plans for me to do is the greatest calling, because when He is working through me, His name will be made known. This is our calling. God is most glorified not in our great acts, but in our simple acts of obedience out of love for Him.

No matter what we do, we are all called to be missionaries right where we are. Our job is to reflect the glory of Christ by our lives. God will choose the location and setting. While some are called to spread the Gospel to other lands, some are called to spread it in their hometowns. Sometimes, it’s just raising our children to love the Lord.

Never underestimate the field before you. Jesus sought people out, but He also ministered to the one right in front of Him. When Jesus is given the wheel and is at the center of all we do, our lives will have an eternal impact for His kingdom.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Matthew 6:33

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." 1 Corinthians 10:31