In “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 brief chapter with a question on Calling and Life Purpose. Listed below are the questions from the second half of this essential book:
- Do you think you are worthy of God’s call? Do you act as if calling was for you alone, designed exclusively for your wishes, dreams, plans, titles, and achievements? Or do you know yourself so well that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt calling is a gift and all of grace? What will you say at the gates of heaven when you are asked, “Who are you?” Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you have the habit of looking around at others with callings close to yours? Do you feel called into question by their achievements? Do you feel that their success is more than they deserve and yours somehow less? Are you disappointed, even angry, at the gap between your desires and your accomplishments? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you allow money to dominate your priorities, assessments, relationships, and time? Do you allow consumer society to contrive your wants? Or do you do what you do, above all, for God’s sake and the sheer love of it? Are you so free from anxiety about money that you can be carefree in giving to those in need? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you long to escape the smallness of a life with no purpose higher than your own? To rise above the mediocrity, tedium, and quiet desperation of so many around you? To know a purpose no odds can daunt and no failure can dismay? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you live in a world without windows? Do you feel the time squeeze of those for whom managing time is a bigger problem than making money? Have you developed your gifts of reason and practicality to the point where your eyes of faith are blind and your weapons of spiritual warfare purely metaphorical? Or do you see “the horses and the chariots of fire all around”? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Is your faith privately engaging but socially irrelevant? Is it as consistent in your place of work as in your home? Are all your memberships and your allegiances relativized by your commitment to Christ? Are you acting as “salt” and “light,” or do you need to be locked out of a Christian ghetto? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you lead a saturated, overloaded, and fragmented life? Are you pulled around by the nose through appeals to need? Are you frustrated at yourself over the times the best in your life is diverted by the good? Do you long to know the overriding passion and purity of heart of willing one thing? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Does your faith see only what is in front of your nose, or is it also “sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”? Does the here and now, the present and the accepted, form a prison cell for your thinking, or are you reaching for more than you have grasped? Has your vision suffered from leakage since you were young, or are you still paying its price and closing its gap with reality? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Are you blind to the splendor of the ordinary? Do you depend on the adrenaline of the impressive and the inspirational? Or do you long for a “philosopher’s stone” to turn life into gold? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you wear your chosenness like a badge of honor? Do you take it as a compliment to the general decency of your life? Or does the unfathomable wonder of calling grip you like a grand compelling you can never satisfy or shake off? Have you ever been carried away beyond yourself by love for Christ who called you? Would Jesus ever be able to say of you what he said of the woman who bathed his feet in her tears? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Have you had your “white funeral”? Or is your faith respectable, sober, moderate, calculated, and comfortable, with as little tension with the world as possible? Are you prepared, in the words of the Little Flower of Lisieux, to “have no other desire than to love Jesus unto folly”? Do you, in your own way, “live after the gospel”? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- Do you try to march to your own drum? Unriddle the puzzle of your own life? Bring in your own chorus of prophets to interpret your omens? Or do you live with your eye upon God and the assurance that your times are in his hands? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
- When the Last Call comes to each of us, will it be found that we have all answered the call, followed the way, and finished well? Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call.
Recent Tweets
JPC Instagram
© [2015] — Journey Pastoral Coaching