Emily, Jacques, Steve and Colette. All doing very well--except tired!

In two weeks I will be heading to Seattle to see my mother and sister. There is a 95 year difference between mother and Jacques, and I stand between the two. Makes me think about life and its span, its beginning and its ending. And makes me think about what we do with what is between the two.

Carl, the pastor of the church we are attending here in Greensboro, spoke today about vocation--the call and response. The word career comes from a Latin word meaning to run. It implies seeking a goal and pushing towards it. The word vocation comes from a Latin word meaning to call or be called. It implies a goal that someone else has set before us--which is a Christian view of life.

At the end of his life Paul wrote, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith... (2 Timothy 4:7). Connecting these words with what he had repeatedly said about his life-work, he was saying that the thing God had called him to he had successfully done and the work God had called him to he had successfully finished. In Isaiah 6 the prophet hears the voice of God, and it is a voice of calling--an invitation. And the prophet responds. The voice clearly spells out some of the hardships ahead, but the prophet responds anyway. In both these men their life work was set by a voice from God and an acceptance of that voice. They were called and they responded.

That call from God is what sets the stage for meaning between birth and death. It is in hearing the call that we are invited into the life which is most fulfilling and it is in responding to that call that we experience that life. Such is the case for the span of our existence on earth, and such is the case for each day.

While few of us will hear a voice from heaven in the same way that Paul and Isaiah did, nevertheless God is calling and if we tune our ears to his voice we will hear it. It may not be to something dramatic and it may not be to something many will note, but if what we do we are doing with a genuine desire to be doing the call of God, and if we do it with the enthusiasm and commitment that that call merits, then it is probably of God. It will fill a need in the world and it will fill a need we have in our hearts. And if we are on the wrong path, but sincerely seek to be on the right one, God will speak--he is not a God who hides...

Many people today are running. They are on a career track, pressing forwards as fast and as hard as they can towards a goal that they have set for themselves. God wants to free us from that running--and he does it by calling us. He offers us a vocation. When we respond to his invitation instead of pursuing our own we may have to work harder than we would for a career, (take up your cross daily and follow me...)but we will find that we are not alone on the track. And we will find meaning in the most menial or the most glamorous--the meaning of being co-workers with God himself...