vocation

All posts tagged vocation

Hosea part 1 – “CALLED”

Posted by David Ward on 21/01/2021
Posted in: Bible, Personal thoughts. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment
Hosea – the tough and tender prophet

One of the exciting things about being a follower of Jesus is that we are called to work alongside God as he carries out his plans for the world. But maybe sometimes the things God asks us to do are difficult and costly…

Read Hosea 1: 1-2

Hosea was called by God to be a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Being a prophet in those days sometimes involved being called to do all sorts of “prophetic actions” to illustrate the words of the prophecy.

For Hosea Gods call meant accepting the call to marry an unfaithful wife and set up a dysfunctional family…maybe none of us has been asked to accept anything quite like that as part of our calling…

Then there‘s the story of Ananias in Acts 9: 10-16. Ananias is a follower of Jesus who lives in Damascus. He’s heard that Saul is coming to town to arrest anyone who follows Jesus, and Saul’s frightening reputation has come before him. God tells him to go and meet the very man he’s afraid of, and Ananias does not have the benefit of knowing about Saul’s dramatic meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Moses, Gideon, Mary, the Disciples, Paul…the Bible is full of stories about God’s not-always-easy call.

Many years ago, l heard God’s call to give up a happy and successful career in teaching to go and join a team working for British Youth for Christ, with no salary on offer and needing to move my family away to the north of England. I’d like to be able to say that everything has been amazing since…but it certainly has been exciting and fulfilling and that one move led to many other opportunities to work with God in some amazing – and tough – places.

In each case, the call was important. It demonstrated God’s confidence in the one called and their willingness to respond. It also witnesses the fact that God does not just call “heroes”; he calls the ordinary and sometimes the timid. Our part is to trust in God’s goodness and faithfulness, and get on with living out our call, in the strength he gives.

Ask God to remind you today of someone you know who may be struggling with God’s call to them. Ask him to give you wisdom and words to speak into their life. Get in touch and offer your prayerful help to them at this time.

Ask God to renew his call on your life, to give you a fresh sense of how significant your contribution is in his eyes and to, “equip you with all you need for doing his will” (Hebrews 13: 21)

A Short History of Divorce 18…Loss

Posted by David Ward on 27/03/2012
Posted in: Relationships. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

‘They’ have sent his student minister to see him. The student obviously feels awkward and out of his depth.

“There’s been a meeting…a small group are insisting that you stand in front of the church and tell everyone exactly why you have separated from your wife.”

 (This is the group who have resented the changes he has brought to their church, who cannot cope with the new people from the neighbourhood who have started to come.)

The man knows he cannot do this. It’s not that he’s not prepared to be completely honest and vulnerable but…churches are often not the places of discretion they should be. His children do not know about the things his wife has done.

Suddenly the strain of trying to keep it all together is too much for him. He feels tired and unable to fight.

His letter of resignation is in the post by the evening…

Resignation means, although he does not know it at the time, the loss of his vocation, long periods of unemployment, having to claim benefit for the first time ever and…because of his failure to explain, being seen for many years to come as the one who broke up the marriage.

A Short History of Divorce 14…Death Throes

Posted by David Ward on 10/03/2012
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“Stay if you want, but I’m not going to stop seeing whoever I choose!”

They have been talking, at length, about the point of impasse they have reached. She throws the line at him as he leaves for work and the safety of his lonely office.

He sits at his desk thinking through the last details of his plan to ‘do a bad thing well’. Much as he’d like to throw her out of their  home, he knows that would not be the best thing for their children right now. They do not even know what’s going on.

He will have to be the one to leave.

He decides that he will not publicly talk of the circumstances of their separation…he will remain as neutral as possible over issues of cause and blame.

After months of Prozac stress and trying badly to hold things together he knows that once this break is made it will be permanent. People may imagine it’s a separation with hope of reconciliation, but he knows better. This will be the end.

What he could not imagine at the time is how powerful people’s need to apportion blame and society’s bias against the man. Once everything goes public, he will be blamed, his faithfulness will be slandered, he will lose his job, his vocation, his home, his financial stability…and the lie will continue to haunt him into his future.

But for now, all that is in the future…after months of trying to salvage things he is finally resolved to being the one to end the painful cycle of betrayal and enable them to move forward.