Here I Am. Can I Miss Out On God’s Calling?
Essays, Featured — By Ross Gale on May 28, 2012 at 8:40 am
I was a business major at a small private Baptist college. I chose business because they had a strong business program. They also had strong Theology and Missionary programs. When the college started that’s all they had. Some people still called it the College of the Worthless Degree.
A Bible professor told us a story about a would-be-missionary. Instead of answering God’s call to go to Asia, the Would-Be-Missionary (or WbM) opted out, married, and had children. The WbM regretted his decision according to the Bible professor. He regretted his cowardice. He regretted that instead of crying out, “Heneni.” “Here I am.” Like Isaiah with the angels in the presence of God. He whispered a feeble, “No thanks.” By not answering God’s call, the WbM missed out on the main calling of his life. “God would continue meeting his needs,” reassured the professor. “But the rest of his life would be…boring, calling-less.” The moral to the Bible Professor’s story: Don’t miss out.
I imagined standing at a train dock, searching the horizon for a billow of steam, and listening for the shrill whistle and the wood beams vibrating beneath my feet. The God-conductor’s bellow, “All aboard.” I lived in a constant state of fear of missing the train, of living in limbo the rest of my life, of not calling out, “Heneni,” when my turn came.
When My Turn Came
Shortly afterward, in a writing class, the professor told me I needed to change my major and focus on writing. I switched majors, then I transferred to another school and moved an hour north to one of the most unchurched cities in the country. A city with more strip clubs per capita then Vegas. I took every writing class offered, I published a poem, I graduated.
Writing takes one to more metaphorical jungles than real ones. And while I could proclaim the gospel in writing it wouldn’t be well received even in some Christian circles, because everything in stories has to be earned, has to be deserved, even the gospel, even Christ. So I went to work trying to earn my keep, learn the craft, live up to this vocation and hang on the careening curves of the God-called train. For this was my calling, right?
The funny thing about vocations is…
…They’re no vacations.
I questioned whether I got on the right train or whether I boarded a train at all. My writing life was full of failure and volunteering for God couldn’t have failure. I mean, what’s the point then? Where’s God in that? I’d boarded the graduated loser train to Nowhereville. The student debt train. The unpublished train. The lonely, forlorn train.
I’d missed out, hadn’t stayed vigilant throughout the dark night. My train whizzed off into the distance without me. I should have stayed in the Bible College. Earned my business degree. Created jobs. Evangelized to needy customers. I imagined God shrugging, “I’ll still meet your needs, but…
…You’re no missionary.”
A pastor once told me God puts us in a garden bordered by a fence. The fence was some sort of moral guarding and God didn’t care if we went to the south garden and painted or if we pranced around the northern square feeding orphans and delivering groceries for widows. He gives us the freedom to move and live. Going outside the boundaries to pursue what we wanted or to go where we pleased wasn’t a part of that freedom. And maybe the analogy has its flaws, but the metaphor lifted the burden of possibly missing out on something God had purposed, something with an expiring contract that could be whisked away if I didn’t answer soon enough.
God’s calling freed me.
So I continued to write. I earned my Masters in writing and started a job with writing responsibilities. I continued to receive a steady stream of rejection letters for my stories. The student debt piled higher. I no longer have a measuring stick or a stat counter of success for this vocation. I’m just dedicated to the work, to the stories and characters and words. Trying to earn my keep.
It’s a new struggle filled with more failures. And every day I rise, I clear my throat, and I say loud enough for me to hear, “Heneni.”
Tags: Missions, vocation, Writing
15 Comments
Wow. Makes me think about how Frederick Buechner defines vocation:
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
Heneni, indeed.
Thank you for this honest, eloquent (and freeing!) reflection, Ross. There’s so much I relate to, here–and I am grateful to have you as a fellow pilgrim on the road. I am also excited to see how God will continue to bless your life and work along the way. Keep those words flowing.
Thank you fellow pilgrim
Ross–thanks for these words. You are crafting something important: sentences, a creative space, your own life. So many of us are with you, sharing these experiences, wondering what “success” really looks like. I think you define it beautifully: it’s getting up, turning our faces to the sun and saying “here I am, give me words that I may serve.”
Thanks Leslie!
The last part of your piece is poignant Ross. I think true missionaries experience failure every day. It keeps them empty of themselves in their field and dependent on Christ to meet the needs of the people they serve. Thank you for sharing your journey – I too sometimes wondered if I missed out because I didn’t choose the “hard life” of a missionary. This continues to confirm, I didn’t. :c)
Ross, thanks for sharing your journey.
I used to think that my stupidity/blindness would cause me to miss the train. But God is greater than my stupidity. I just have to trust Him and remember that He doesn’t want us to miss the train. He knows all our weaknesses and imperfections, but He’s still in our corner.
I always wanted to write, but I thought it would have to wait until my kids were grown (many years from now). One day I was in church praying and I knew God was asking me to write, right then. I got out some scrap paper and a pen and my journey began.
I’ve struggled with disappointment and lots of rejection, and I’ve wondered if this is really what God’s calling me to do. But in my more lucid moments, I see that even if nothing I write ever gets published, God is using this experience for my spiritual growth. I’m learning that my expectations are not always the same as God’s.
God bless you on your journey. Hang in there.
Ross – I love the ending to this piece. I wonder if the statistical / quantitative nature of our culture makes not having a “measuring stick” even harder for some writers and vocations now…
“I no longer have a measuring stick or a stat counter of success for this vocation. I’m just dedicated to the work, to the stories and characters and words. Trying to earn my keep… It’s a new struggle filled with more failures. And every day I rise, I clear my throat, and I say loud enough for me to hear, ‘Heneni.’”
I can relate to your life. I spent years waiting on a call that never came. The problem, I came to realize, was that I was waiting on the wrong call- I expected to go one way when God had other ideas. Now I feel as if I’m finally on board with God’s plan, but why is it taking so long?
I’m not sure but I know God is in control and His timing is perfect. In the meantime I’m going to learn, grow and wait. I spent enough years conducting my own train, I’m satisfied now to enjoy where God leads.
Thanks for encouraging me to stay on this train and for helping me to remember that God’s train doesn’t always go as fast as we would like.
A truly inspirational story. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Thank goodness for that teacher who recognized your gift and guided you toward the study of writing! Excellent piece. I think this will resonate with everyone who finds themselves in a place that is really different than what they expected. And isn’t that almost everyone nowadays?
Very interesting piece. Difficult to relate to “callings” and “vocations” but your devotion is inspirational.
Ross,
What if our call is just to be honest pilgrims?
What if our long dark night of the soul is the alchemy that is meant to transform us?
What if our call is to learn to do as you have done, forsaking stats and follow?
Learning to call on the Creator is a life long lesson.
Well done.
Thanks for the thoughts.
~Regards, Dan
Great post, Ross. It’s a scary world out there for an unknown author/artist trying to get their work out there, but a scarier world for those who don’t follow God’s direction!