God's Calling Plan - Christianity Today

Fugitive and sheep-herder Moses had an irresistible encounter with a burning bush. Peter and Andrew left fishing nets to follow an itinerant rabbi and were recognized and promoted from the larger group of followers and designated by their leader as “apostles” (Luke 6:13-14). For Saul, it was a blinding light, the Lord’s clear voice, and the grace-filled guidance of Ananias.

And throughout the centuries ever since, Christian leaders have been called by unlikely means.

John Chrysostom, preferring the quiet of the cloister, refused an invitation to become bishop of Constantinople. Only after he was kidnapped and forcibly installed did he accept the position as God’s calling for him.

Martin Luther was returning to law school during a violent storm, and lightning struck so close that he feared for his life. “Save me, Saint Anne, and I’ll become a monk,” he cried. Amazingly, he honored the panic-provoked vow, which turned out to be the beginning of a religious calling that forever changed the church.

Billy Graham, the summer after his high school graduation and just a year after responding himself to an evangelist’s invitation to accept Christ, was selling Fuller brushes when he tagged along with Jimmie Johnson, a 23-year-old evangelist who was going to preach in the local jail. At least in part as a practical joke, Johnson introduced Billy to the inmates as a new convert who wanted to tell what God had done for him. Billy, who hadn’t preached before, was taken off-guard but gave it a try, based on what he’d heard other evangelists say. His opening line was an awkward and inappropriate: “I’m glad to see so many of you here this afternoon.”

He went on, as biographer William Martin describes it, to somewhat overstate the darkness of his pre-conversion condition: “I was a sinner and a no-good. I didn’t care anything about God, the Bible, or people.” He went on to say that “Jesus changed my life! He gave me peace and joy! He can give you peace and joy! He will forgive your sins and he forgave mine if you will only let him into your heart.”

He offered no invitation, and no inmates professed “decisions,” but doing the work of an evangelist had begun for Billy Graham. Was this the direction God was calling him to go? For two more years, Billy protested that he lacked the eloquence to be an evangelist. At the same time, Billy confessed later, “In the most unusual way, I used to have strange glimpses of the crowds that I now preach to.” The search for a clear understanding of the call spoiled Billy’s sleep until finally, around midnight one evening, he returned from a long, brooding walk and knelt to say, “All right, Lord, if you want me, you’ve got me. I’ll be what you want me to be and I’ll go where you want me to go.”

According to biographer Martin, “That was it. It may not have been loud, but he had his call. Now, he had to preach.”

Has God called you? And if so, to what? Among believers, these questions are never far from the surface. They’re crucial questions, especially if you’re in church leadership. They touch the very legitimacy of your position. Is what you’re doing truly your “vocation” (from the Latin vocare, meaning a response to hearing a voice)? Is your work a “calling” or just a job?

The question is complicated by the fact that all Christians, in some sense, are called. The most prominent use of the word call in the New Testament is the Christian’s call to salvation. “And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:6). And all disciples of Jesus are called to fulfill his Great Commission in Matthew 28, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”

Likewise, we are all called to exercise our spiritual gifts. Peter writes, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Pet. 4:10).

So the question for faithful readers of this newsletter is not “Am I called?” The question is “What has God called me to do with these people?” And it helps to trace the movements of how God arranges that relationship and impresses the calling upon his chosen ones.

We’d like to hear your “calling” story for an upcoming issue of Leadership. How do you know that God has chosen you for ministry? How did God communicate to you that your vocation would be in ministry? You can reply by clicking the link below.

I look forward to sharing several of these stories with the readers of our journal-and helping us all see more clearly the ways that God works with his chosen.

Marshall Shelley is editor of Leadership.

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