Called by God?

What makes you think that God has called you into ministry?  How do you know?  Does this mean that you are special and can now lord it all over others?  Questions that need answers when we think that God has called u into some new venture.  The call of God is an inevitable call into constant change and constant newness.  It is not an easy thing to recognise and is not and easy thing to grasp in our imaginations or lives. Just with Samuel and Eli often we do not understand what is happening until a while down the track (1 Sam. 3.1-11).  Most of us just like Samuel need to have someone say to us listen up God is talking.  It is all very well to try and be like the disciples and drop everything (John 1.45-51) but for many it is a question of time and being pushed into a new direction.

Often times this may seem very strange at the time and awkward for everyone around us but once we respond to that quiet voice we begin to see the formation of logical streams that culminate in what and where God wishes us to be.  Often it is in hindsight that we recognise the prompting of God even if for others it has been relatively obvious.  In the beginning of a new year we either find ourselves looking back and discovering our mistakes or looking forward and trying to find some means of struggling forward to some new purpose.  This can often arise as something that has attributes of sameness to those things that we had greatness with in the past.  A move which actually brings us back to the comfortable place that we inhabit with out assisting God to create newness.  In doing so we find it ever harder to discover God in our midst as we grow a hardened shell around us that prevents the newness we fear from entering in.  Yet God's voice is persistent and somehow bypasses the shields we place around us, it becomes an irritating itch that needs to be scratched or prevents us from gaining the rest that we are looking for in the midst of new activity.

Are we responding to God's voice in the ordinary?

What generally happens is that we put the call to the side and leave it like Eli does at the start of the interaction with Samuel (1 Sam. 1.4-7).  Unlike Eli though we are not as quick to realise what is occurring by putting up a wall or just ignoring the call.  We do not encourage ourselves to discern God's call on our communal lives or even our individual lives.  Things like God calling us are spooky and totally out there things that have no place in today's world.  This makes it easier and easier for us to ignore the small persistent voice. This means that we have accepted that we are in a place of comfort and do not want to grow or move on from this place.  God's call brings us away from the comforts of live and faces us with the harsh reality of those around us who are at the edges.  Another reason why we do not want to heed that small voice.  Who wants to give up comfortable surroundings for the desert and insecurity of life at the edge.  It is when we are prepared to move out into the shattered lives of tragedy that we find God is there ahead of us calling us to minister.  We just have to remember the affect of a run down parish had in the face of tragedy in London.  Yet the call is not just for tragedies it is for everyday boring life.  This unfortunately is were we struggle because we can see the need in tragedy and the bigger picture things like, Manus, like Nauru, like abuse, etc but we cannot see the differences in normal everyday lives.  We have lost our own connection to the sublime and the holy.  We cannot connect what these mean for an ordinary life in the world.  Perhaps it is time for us to answer God's call in the ordinary rather than waiting for the extraordinary.