I’m still musing on parts one and two of this series — and apparently some of you are too — so I thought I’d go ahead and write a part III.
Let’s talk about calling.
First, there are those of us who feel as though a calling or callings have been revealed to us and we are fighting against the direction God is asking us to go. We’re either doubting him or doubting ourselves (or both) and we’re dragging our feet because we just can’t reconcile the demands of the process with our own resources. This is the case with the story I shared about Kathleen Norris in Part I. She was confessing a real dissonance with what God was revealing in her life and the implications of this revelation.
I feel like a lot of us can relate to that. The “calling” is typically far less sexy than we’d like it to be, far less pre-packaged than we were hoping or expecting. Often the calling is about God’s larger values for our life: having courage, exploring mysteries, choosing healing, contributing uniquely.
Right now, I’m “called” to be a mother. There are days when I resist this call, days when I don’t submit to it. And I’m left desolate as a result. Instead of asking God to give me the resources I need to walk into each moment of my day, I buck. And it turns out badly for everyone.
As one reader said (this is a paraphrase), sometimes (maybe even most often) the call is about accepting where God has you right now — as he was trying to get the prophets to do — and facing the moments of your current day with courage.
Some of us are chasing after this revered and mystical sunset that keeps us from having to actually live presently in our lives. The calling is so woo-ing but so elusive that we are ever-chasing after something that may or may not truly exist. We can tend to neglect our spiritual and emotional health because we are “wearing out our shoes.”
The call is always, live today to the fullest, loving and healing and becoming. Often, this process happens in a strange and mysterious unfolding. And less in a lightening bolt from the sky.
