God’s Calling: From Here To There
Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash
What has God called you to do? Where is God calling you? What has God been preparing for you to do to serve him and his kingdom?
God uses our personality, our history, and our vocation to shape us for his service. We all begin somewhere doing something to serve God in our lives and work. God uses our past and present circumstances to prepare us and to call us into his future mission for our lives.
In the case of the Minor Prophet Amos, God used Amos’ vocation as a shepherd of sheep in the north—in the land of Israel, as he pierced the fruit of the Sycamore Figs so they would ripen, in order to get to know the land and the people of Israel, so that Amos could effectively be God’s prophet to the idolatrous people in the land.
God’s word says, “Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, ‘I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’” (Amos 7:14-15, ESV).
Amos did not see himself as qualified as a prophet of God, concerning having proper credentials through his family of origin. Amos was not a prophet and neither was his father.
Amos was a blue collar worker, he was a shepherd of his own sheep. However, he was a poor shepherd without his own pasture land. Amos tended the Sycamore Fig trees for wealthy land owners in Israel in exchange for grazing his flock in their pastures.
It was in this basic and everyday context of Amos’ normal and routine job and lifestyle that God called Amos to be a prophet to Israel. God used Amos’ work as preparation, as a training ground, and as his qualification for his calling as God’s prophet to Israel.
As God called Amos from his ordinary day job into his calling as an extraordinary prophet of God to Israel. God also calls us from our faithful service in our lives and vocation to serve him faithfully in his kingdom work in extraordinary ways.
There is no work that is not holy and utilized by God for his kingdom purposes in the world. God’s calling is from where we have been, and from where we are, to where God wants us to be. Our faithfulness in our lives and work prepares us and equips us for God’s future call and kingdom vocation.
As Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel in the parable of the manager, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.” (Luke 16:10, ESV).
May we be faithful in God’s call in our lives and work so that God can use our faithfulness as he makes us faithful in so much more in his future call in our lives to serve him and his kingdom in this world.
In Christ alone, Robbie
A Prayer For Guidance: “Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash
