The Calling

 Where did you grow up? Is that the place you still live? I grew up in the piney woods of east Texas. Lufkin to be more specific. That is where my kin are buried. Lufkin is four and a half hours from Weatherford, TX. We traveled back there this past summer for a few days to see some friends and to get away for a couple of days. I had not been back there for years. 

We ate at my favorite restaurant. A little burger place called Ray's. Every burger I have eaten is compared to Ray's. No burger has topped it from all over the United States I have tried. We drove by our old homeplace. I saw Jone's hill where I used to race my bike. We drove around Englewood Estates where I grew up from elementary school until I went off to college. I even got to drive by Abe Martin football stadium where I played for the Lufkin Panthers, but more importantly where Jesus saved me in the stands. The trip was nostalgic for me. 

We drove by the first church I served as pastor. We made our way to the first home Brenda, and I bought by faith. We drove to the church where I was baptized and taught the fundamentals of God's word for years. 

I will always think fondly of Lufkin. It is not my home anymore. My whole life changed July 4, 1985. I had no idea what God was up to that night except for one thing, I could not shake His calling on my life to preach. Our youth group was at camp. For months I wrestled with the calling. The LORD persisted and on that night I surrendered. I had no idea what that would mean. How surrendering to that calling was just the first step of many other callings on my life to follow Jesus Christ my Lord. 

Abraham knew what it was like to get a calling. An unusual calling. A unique calling. God called him to get up and leave His country to go to a place God would show him. Not many details. An open-ended calling to trust and obey. Abraham was 75 years old at the time. He was married and settled down. All his kin lived there. 

The calling of God comes unexpectedly and honestly sometimes unwelcomed. God invaded Abraham's normal, comfortable, and secure life to a life of faith. Not very many stand in line to sign up for that kind of life of faith. 

My youth pastor gave me some great advice the summer after I graduated from college. I was just days away for leaving home to attend Howard Payne University. Eli Bernard told me, "It will never be the same when you return home again. From this time forward, each time you return home you will do so with a suitcase in hand." He was right. I came back home for the summer after my freshman year at college. After that, I never came home for another summer and made it back home mainly for holidays. 

God's calling to a life of faith is foreign to many people. They are not open to listen nor to follow such a calling. Let me say it is not an easy life, but it sure is a thrilling life. Abraham obeyed by faith. Why? Because he heard Yahweh's calling. The irresistible, inexplicable, and incomprehensible calling from Jehovah. 

God's callings often do not make sense. You cannot logically rationalize it in the mind. That is why it is a call to live by faith. I cannot imagine the difficult conversations between Terah, his father, and Sarai his wife. Picture it with me. I am sure that Abraham awkwardly approached his wife and summoned the courage to tell her, "We're moving." Brenda and I have had those conversations, and they are never easy nor pleasant. I've dreaded them over the years.

Deduce Sarai's reaction. I am sure questions surfaced in her like why and where. Abraham's reply must have been ambiguous. Why, because God called me to move. Where, I do not know He told me He would show me. We have no record of God revealing this same thing to Sarai. Only Abraham. She had to trust that her husband did hear from God and trust God to follow the calling. 

They obeyed. There comes a moment in the life of believers who hear God's calling that you have to choose to obey or disobey. Abraham had to tell his father at some point. I can see that being a very difficult conversation. Terah wanted to be surrounded in his old age by his son and eventual grandchildren. Many people get talked out of the calling of God at this point. They put family before God. Commendably, Abraham put God before family. 

He obeyed with Sarai, his nephew Lot, and their servants to sojourn in tents without planting deep roots. They lived a nomadic life. All because of a calling. 

There is power in a calling from God. When people really hear God call them to a task, many follow. They chase hard after God into some wild adventures. I think about one of my favorite authors, Mark Batterson, following God from Chicago to Washington DC to eventually start a church in movie theaters. National Community Church is now several thousand people in attendance. They even own a coffeehouse. None of that was known when the Battersons packed their belongings and moved several states to follow God's calling. 

God was so pleased with Abraham's obedience that He chose to include this incident in the famous Hebrews 11 hall of faith chapter. You read it in Hebrews 11:8. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going to a place which he was to receive for and inheritance and went out not knowing where he was going. 

Many people consider that a frightening way to live. I believe it is the only way to live. The biblical way to live. Living surrendered and available. Most people will never experience a calling so drastic as the one God gave to Abraham. Some do. Some are called to uproot, to follow to distant cities or nations to do the work of God. 

We sometimes sing the old song Trust and Obey. Abraham lived it. He obeyed the call even though family members probably did not fully agree or understand. He obeyed when he did not even know where he was going. He had to follow God daily to know where to go next which might have seemed a little unsettling. Sarai could not build her nest as she had to constantly pack and unpack to head what Abrahm heard from the LORD. He obeyed when the calling did not make sense to the natural mind. He obeyed and as a result of his faith what did God do? Start the nation of Israel that will play a key role in prophetic end times. It started with a calling and a step of obedience. Will you obey when God calls the next time?