Unfinished: Believing is Only the Beginning
Verse
“‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matthew 25:23)
Food for Thought
If you have faithfully taken steps to find God’s calling for your life and still feel frustrated that you haven’t found it, relax. You may be waiting for some glamorous and dramatic way to serve and missing the fact that there is always a way to further God’s kingdom right where you are. We are to live with this question on our lips at all times: “How can I serve the Lord today, here in this place?”
The Boeing worker assigned to design the latch on the cargo door might long for the glory of working on the majestic wings or perhaps the jet engines because they seem so much more significant…until the cargo door latch fails, and a plane crashes, killing everyone aboard.
God asks us to be faithful in a little before he will entrust us with a lot. Sometimes an enlisted soldier, itching to go to the front lines, is held back on a military base in his or her home country thousands of miles from the front, awaiting orders. In the meantime, he must remain ready by practicing his drills and sharpening his skills, being faithful in a little. There may come a time when the commanding general calls him to the front; it’s just not now.
I was forty-seven before I was called to lead World Vision. After my first year, when I realized how fulfilling my job was and how suited it was to my gifts and talents, I asked Reneé why I hadn’t done something like this before. “Because you weren’t ready,” she said. “God had a lot of work to do in your life to prepare you to serve at World Vision.” She was right again.
God had been patient with me, testing, disciplining, shaping, and preparing me. He had asked me to be faithful with what was right in front of me, and when the time was right, he called me away to something different. And I had to be willing and available to go.
Abraham was one hundred years old when his promised son, Isaac, was born. Joseph was sold as a slave and spent years in prison before rising to become the pharaoh’s right-hand man who would save Egypt and his family from famine. Moses was eighty years old before he was given his great calling to rescue Israel from their Egyptian captivity.
The key to discovering your specific calling in the end is patience and faithfulness. Make yourself available, serve where you stand, be faithful with what’s in front of you, and trust God for the outcome.
Question for Reflection
As you think through your current activities, how would each activity look different if you ask yourself, “How can I serve the Lord today, here in this place?”
Prayer
Lord, thank you for wanting to use me. Please make your will clear, your calling loud, and don’t let me miss it! Help me to obey.
Unfinished: Believing is Only the Beginning. Copyright © 2013 by World Vision.