Calling Not Potential

Two mind shakers, heart rattlers, and soul rollers from the Resurgence:


A question that could change your life.


What would you be willing to attempt for God if you knew you could not fail?

How to live for God's glory.

Pursue your calling, not your potential.

. . . you were redeemed from the empty way of life . . . 
(1 Pet. 1:18)

Therefore,

 Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity . . . 
(Eph. 5: 15)

Life Changer

Be forewarned this is the best sermon on missions you will ever hear. For some of you, it will mean leaving where you are to go where you are called. Soak it in, then let it gnaw on your soul - be radically moved. Let the One who holds the fate of the world in His hand have your life as well.

Dylan On Work & Calling

All credit to Margie Haack (at her blog: Toads Drink Coffee) for the following re-post. If you aren't familiar with her and her husband, Denis (who I've had the pleasure of hearing preach), they lead the ministry, Ransom Fellowship. Denis wrote a book that influenced me in earlier years, entitled "The Rest of Success". Read a sampling of the unique, thought-provoking, Biblically-informed writing that comes out of their ministry.

The re-purposed post "Dylan On Work & Calling":

Rolling Stone: So live performance is a purpose you find fulfilling?

Dylan: If you’re not fulfilled in other ways, performing can never make you happy. Performing is something you have to learn how to do it. You do it, you get better at it, you keep going. And if you don’t get better at it, you have to give it up. Is it a fulfilling way of life? What kind of way of life is fulfilling? No kind of life is fulfilling if your soul hasn’t been redeemed. 

You’ve described what you do not as a career but as a calling.

Everybody has a calling, don’t they? Some have a high calling, some have a low calling. Everybody is called but few are chosen. There is a lot of distraction for people, so you might not never find the real you. A lot of people don’t. 

How would you describe your calling?

Mine? Not any different than anybody else’s. Some people are called to be a good sailor. Some people have a calling to be a good tiller of the land. Some people are called to be a good friend. You have to be the best at whatever you’re called at. Whatever you do. You ought to be the best at it – highly skilled. It’s about confidence – not arrogance.

By It I See

C. S. Lewis:

We believe that the sun is in the sky at midday in summer not because we can clearly see the sun (in fact, we cannot) but because we can see everything else. . . 


I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

To Sacrifice A Higher For A Lower?

John Piper in 1977:
 The only reason for living is the achievement of what you value. Nobody should ever sacrifice a higher value to a lower one. You should always aspire to deciding what you value. Until that happens you cannot make any reasonable steps toward choosing a vocation (or anything else). My highest value is to see God glorified. The way God has guided me to realize that value is through ____________ .

Stop. Think. The only reason for living ... Never a higher value for a lower value ... Always aspire ... My highest value ...

Now fill in the blank.

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~Wendell Berry

But one thing I do:

Forgetting what is behind and straining

toward what is ahead,

I press on . . .

~St. Paul

All Head No Heart?

Psalm 63: 1-5 ~ Beautiful words ~ Your love is better than life!

Blaise Pascal was a 17th century Frenchman, who at age 31 experienced the presence of the God and wrote his memoriam that he then sewed inside his coat as a reminder. He was a mathematician and theologian (what a combination!), a real smart and heady guy; an academic, a thinker. Read what this man of the mind wrote:

In the year of grace 1654, Monday 23 November . . .
From about half-past ten in the evening till about half an hour after midnight.

FIRE
God of Abraham. God of Isaac. God of Jacob.
Not of the philosophers and the learned.
Certainty. Joy. Certainty. Emotion. Sight. Joy.
Forgetfulness of the world and of all outside of God . . .
Joy! Joy! Joy! Tears of joy . . .
My God, will you leave me? Let me not ever be separated from you.