Called – by Marion Cooper

Some years ago a concept was circulating around the churches that suggested that whatever you enjoyed doing was your ministry!  Even then, I considered this erroneous and certainly not my experience, but didn’t give the idea too much thought.

However in the last week a couple of things have happened that brought this again to my mind.

Firstly in the UCB daily reading notes, it reminded us that ‘calling’ was not the ‘dream career’ and that throughout scripture many of the ‘called’ resisted their calling. Indeed when Jeremiah was called to preach to the people, he cried so much he became known as the ‘weeping prophet’!

Then last Sunday, Jarrod was speaking on discipleship and specifically on serving. He said that when our family had been called to Gibraltar, sold our home, his father left a job in management for British Steel and put everything we owned in a 2CV car, (the French farmers’ car), his clearest and most abiding memory was of me, his mother, sobbing.

It reminded me how distressed I felt, not just at what I was going to, but also what we were leaving behind.  Our church, our friends and the security we had known, to go to an unusual land we barely knew, where we had no home, no job, and strictly speaking, no ministry; but where we knew for certain God had called us.

But also I was so sorry that my two young sons should see their mother so distressed and that it had stayed clearly in their minds for almost 40 years.

But this is the truth, calling is not easy, even when we are completely in the centre of Gods will, we will almost definitely experience difficulties, challenges, setbacks and discouragements.

Stepping into our calling or even on to another level of our calling is a massive learning curve.

Yet to be called to serve God is a massive honour and privilege. It is where we prove our God. It is where faith rises, where we see supernatural provision. It is the place of adventures and stories that glorify God. Where ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,’ becomes not just a concept but an almost daily reality.

Driving down through France and Spain to Gibraltar was not the only time I cried! Yet those ten years on the Rock of Gibraltar were such a blessed, fruitful, special and maturing time. And although I am sorry Jason and Jarrod saw that distress, they too, on a daily basis, saw a God who was real, powerful and cared for them. I believe God didn’t just mature the grown ups but laid a foundation in our sons lives that has contributed to the men of God they are today.

Mark 10.28. ‘Peter said to Jesus,’ We have left everything to follow you!’ ‘I tell you the truth,’ Jesus replied, ‘ no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (with persecutions), and in the age to come eternal life.’