God's Calling ~ Listing Curiosity

 

We are now three weeks into our “Calling” sermon series, I pray you are finding threads and themes from our scripture stories that are woven into your story.  Maybe a theme for you was hearing how God interrupts and disrupts people in the midst of their ordinary, everyday life.  Think here of Moses tending sheep or Jonah doing whatever Jonah was doing ~ because scripture doesn’t say ~ but we know he wasn’t dreaming of a vacation to Nineveh!  We know Jeremiah wasn’t studying at prophet school.  We know Moses wasn’t planning a trip back to the Egyptian neighborhood where he grew up.  We have also heard the reluctance and resistance to God’s calling from Moses, Jeremiah, and Jonah.  We have heard God’s reassurance ~ God’s promise of presence.

A few weeks ago, I suggested that your calling might be where your fascinations and fears meet/intersect.  Or yesterday, I asked a similar set of questions, what are you running from and what are you running toward?  Your calling might be uncovered and discovered where your curiosity and concerns come together. This week I want to explore why/how this is.

Sometimes we make God’s calling out to sound so wonderful and full of bliss.  That once you realize God’s holy prompting, the pathway is paved for you with no bumps or twists or turns.  It is like the Yellow brick Road beside the chocolate river of awesomeness.  Yet, that is certainly not the testimony/theme of Scripture.  The stories we have held for the last three weeks, the calling narratives we will hear in the weeks to come, all tell us that God’s calling might lead us in paths for God’s sake that were never part of our 5-year plan.  The pathways of our calling will be rocky.  Jeremiah is laughed at, Jonah must go to people who impale others for sport, and Moses back to the very household he fled in fear from ~ do you hear what I hear?  That thread/theme is that there is a risk in calling.  We will have concerns and fears.  At the same time, there will be something sacred in that holy prompting that piques our curiosity and fascination. 

Today, I want you to prayerfully ponder: where are you curious?  What are you fascinated to find out more about?  I encourage you to get out a piece of paper and begin to make a list.  Parker Palmer says that our souls are shy and a question like this can open us in vulnerable ways.  You may have a pen in your hand and go to write something down…and idea or thought…and your bossy brain says, “You can’t say that!!  It’s silly.”  Your internal editor, which is really the collection and culmination of comments/reactions/responses from your past, might try to stop your hand from writing down a topic.  Like Moses, Jeremiah, and Jonah, we all have reluctance and resistance. 

I pray you will find the courage to move through that initial reaction.  Remember, you are NOT going to share this with anyone else.  You are sorting through your mind, heart, soul ~ investigating YOUR life to see what the Spirit is stirring.  Another way to phrase this question is, “What gives you life?”  This can be small things like talking to a friend, sailing, painting, music, volunteering, or writing a morning meditation.

When I do this exercise, I write down things like: writing, photography, learning more about the inner life, Bible Study, being a loving husband and father, living into God’s image.  For you, it may be learning more about the National Park system or practicing a foreign language or reading or cooking in the kitchen.  When we ask where in our ordinary lives, we are most alive we are opening ourselves to the burning, blazing bushes in your life.  Where you, like Moses, are curious/fascinated and want to know more.  Write those down.  Tomorrow, we will continue to build on this list.

Gracious God, up from the ground You raise Your people, filling our lives, making us whole.  Down through the years we long for our lives to praise You ~ through thought, word, actions, and our whole presence.  Let our lives radiate an “Alleluia” to You as we honestly name the places we long to explore.  Amen.