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The Greatest Calling
.
These thoughts came to me at 5:30A the second day of my chemo treatments
last week. I share them with you as I just ponder.
A very precious card sent to me said
"things are going
to be okay.... Noah 's life was fine until a crisis rocked the
boat....Joseph's troubles started with a multicolored coat. Rachel had a
change of plans, but kept her sense of humor.. While Jeremiah's job turned out
to be a gloom-and-doomer. Now there are lots of other folks, the
Bible talks about. Who simply had to keep the faith while things were
working out. So when life is unpredictable or problems come your way,
remember- God's in charge?? And things are going to be okay!!"
I have this card in
front of me on my desktop....
Beth Moore had a
statement in the Bible study booklet, Jesus the One and Only.
"The greatest of callings are the gravest." And I
think about Jesus, Joseph, David, Moses, Joshua, Jeremiah, John, Paul, Moses,
JOB. Great callings. Grave callings. But yet,
what encouraging things came from each of those callings.
What full-blooded
American-give-me-my-dream Christian is gonna want that for a calling?
Not me, thank you. Just let me walk unencumbered, no troubles.
What is the
significance of "the greatest.?" -- the greatest equates
BETTER. A great skier--the greatest skier. A great
musician--the greatest musician. a great calling--the greatest calling.
It implies a HIGHER PLANE. And in the Christian realm, it implies
a Higher, UNSEEN, plane.
What goes along with
this higher calling-- the calling called greatest? A calling implies
WORDS spoken. I call you--beckon. Who does this beckoning?
Jesus was close to and heard and knew the Father's voice and will.
It is He who calls us daily.
David, Joseph, Job --
they had the intimacy with the Lord that brought a hand-in-hand walk.
It was the human touching the divine. "Pie in the sky, you may
say?" Hardly and quite the opposite. When the divine
touches the human, the human is lifted from the realm of the
great-American-dream to the greater dreams of the King--to the realm of
Kingdom perspective -- a supernatural awareness that what you see ain't
what you got and an awareness that what He say IS what you got.
That life, touched by
the divine, and touching the divine is a walk of FAITH. And faith
pleases God (Heb 11:6) What is faith? -- the evidence of things NOT
seen. Not seen!! But you've got to be kidding? I see
symptoms!! I see x-rays that show something in my body.
But greater still I see
the Healer -- He is in me. The world says, "horrible."
The King says "my purposes... my plans...my glory." The world
says pain, suffering, hard days. He says "my comfort, my grace, my
overcoming power."
Do we see? yep!!
Do we feel? yep. But the greater of the calling is, do we hear the
words of our "present help in trouble" (Pslam 91) as He speaks His
"precious promises as we partake of His divine Nature." (I Peter)
Is any calling easy?
And is the greatest calling easy? Absolutely not, for it requires
faith that is tested. Constantly tested. But what really is
tested, isn't it me? Not exactly. It's GOD's word that is tested.
The way I am tested is that the fire comes, then He gives grace to walk
through it and strengthens me, leads me to those promises and enables me to
come to Him with not mine own understanding, but with HIS understanding and
direction of my path (Prov 3:3,4)
He gives the test,
gives the grace, grows me up, gives His Word, infuses it in me to me me an
overcomer. He is the victor in me and I get to go along, being drawn
into the touch of the divine. So God's Word is tested and HE
brings me into a new understanding of believing that Word and thus I grow in
Kingdom perspective (James 1:2-5)
One other important
factor to this greater calling is the importance of the fellowship of the
saints. The prayers of the saints enable us to walk and seek and
overcome. Why? Becuase God has chosen that way of walking.
Psalm 118:7 "the Lord is for me among those who help me."
And Paul said "You also join us by helping us with your prayers."
JOIN. This walk
for me has been just that -- a joining from the hip -- the HIP OF THE
SPIRIT; and it has been one that has been so warm and uplifting and
rich.
So the greatest
callings are the gravest to the earthly realm, but greatest in the heavenly
realm because they result in faith that pleases God and produces fruit that
will last for eternity.
And the GREATEST part
of all -- that walk in the divine touch of the very present help in trouble --
the Savior, who's seen and know it ALL -- the love of God, outpoured, which
surpasses all knowledge.
I close with some
thoughts that I had as I was tempted to look at what I see:
I cannot look at
what I see
I
must look at
Who I know.
For who I know is
the only One
Who
can do anything about
what I see
You can reach us by e-mail: linda@nehemiahmusic.org
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