God’s Call: Command and Gift

Back into our shell

It is part and parcel of being a living human being that it comes as a shock to our system whenever we encounter God and God’s will for our lives. Our self-interests are so used to being fed first that when they brush up against the absolute truth and beauty of God they recoil from the encounter, and then we pull back into our shell. No, we cannot do what God asks there must be an easier, softer way, we say.

And for the vast majority of us the refuge of those hiding from God has become a huge community of people and so we can be anonymous and safe. Most of the people around us aren’t doing God’s will either so neither will I, we think. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that “it is most comfortable to stride unknown through the world, without being known to His Majesty the King… to be known by God in time makes life so acutely strenuous. Where God is every half hour is of tremendous importance. But to live in that manner is not endurable for sixty years.”

Removing our masks

To which I say, perhaps. Perhaps it is not endurable to the person who does not wish to be an authentic person… who has lost the courage to accept God’s acceptance? We haven’t truly experienced God if we haven’t tried to run from Him or his call on our lives. But God stands in front of Jeremiah, as God is in front of you this day here in this place, to remove our masks and remind us that none of this has to do with you or your power or your ego it has only to do with God: and that truth, brothers and sisters, is what gave Jeremiah the confidence to become a messenger.

Do not be afraid, God says, for I am with you. It is when the false selves that we have built for ourselves are finally destroyed and in shambles around us that our will is finally put to death but God has promised the touch of His hand will be there to lead and guide you in your next steps as a new creation, a child of God living in this world.

Are you running?

So I ask you: Have you been running from a call of God on your life? Why would God chase you down unless he had a call for your life AND will give you the power to see that call through?

As a church, may we always be asking ourselves that question as well: How may we be instruments of YOUR will this day? We dare not become a community of those hiding from God’s call in anonymity, each of us was created for so… much… more…