In his book, “The Call,” Os Guinness writes “the truth that God calls us to himself so decisively that everything we are, everything we do, and everything we have is invested with a special devotion and dynamism lived out as a response to his summons and service.”
He continues, “Deep in our hearts, we all want to find and fulfill a purpose bigger than ourselves. Only such a larger purpose can inspire us to heights we know we could never reach on our own. For each of us the real purpose is personal and passionate: to know what we are here to do and why. Kierkegaard wrote in his Journal: The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.”
Guinness ends each chapter with a question on Calling and Life Purpose. Listed below are the questions from the first half of this essential book:
- Do you have a reason for being, a focused sense of purpose in your life or is your life the product of the myriad pulls of forces outside yourself? Do you want to go beyond success to significance? Have you come to realize that self-reliance always falls short and that world-denying solutions provide no answer in the end? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you long to know the One you have sought as your heart’s true home and one true desire? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you want to know the secret of the mystery of your very being and rise to become what you were born to be? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you want to accept a challenge that will be the integrating dynamic of your whole life? One that will engage your loftiest thoughts, your most dedicated exertions, your deepest emotions, all your abilities and resources, to the last step you take and the last breath you breathe? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you want to be his, entirely his, at all costs his, and forever his so that secondary things remain so and first things are always first? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you want the best and most wonderful gifts God has given you to decay, spent on your own self? Or do you want them to be set free to come into their own as you link your profoundest abilities with your neighbor’s need and the glory of God? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you want to know a truth that in the momentous challenges of our modern world will be at once a quest to inspire you, an anchor to hold you fast, a rich fare to nourish you, and a relationship you will prize above all others? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you want to “let God be God” and know a decisive authority in your life that will brook no refusal? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you wish to be inner-directed rather than other-directed and truly make one audience decisive, the Audience of One? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you long to rise to the full stature of whom you are created to be? To know the passion of the intensity of life at its fullest? To be your utmost for his highest? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you wish to stand fast and be a responsible person, one “who tries to make his or her whole life an answer to the question and call of God”? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Are you frustrated with “the institutional church,” as if there is such a thing as a noninstitutional church? Is your communal expression of faith only a spiritual equivalent of a “lifestyle preference” and a “lifestyle enclave”? Or are you committed to the holy, catholic, and apostolic church? Is your allegiance truly to a nonpolitical and nonethnic assembly of people designed to gather all nations to itself, on the basis not of tribe or nation but the call of God in Christ? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you wish to live life as a journey? Are you eager to know the Way? Deeply desiring to reach the goal of your quest? Willing to lead an examined life, travel with those who use the same signpost, and associate with all who long for the same home? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
Continued in Part II . . .
Recent Tweets
JPC Instagram
© [2015] — Journey Pastoral Coaching