Training

For some people with performance/result-driven mindsets…. (no, of course I don’t know anyone like that!) training periods, if they are not understood as such, can be a source of frustration and disappointment.  In Christian circles, not much attention is given to this aspect of a believer’s life, when they become aware of a calling.  We have the microwave approach to ministry – “Whatever God has called you to do, go out there and get after it! What is holding you back?”  We can sometimes take on a mountain of guilt or feel as if we are always falling behind, if we take no notice of God’s timetables.

First we sometimes make too much of our calling and not enough of the One who called.  Jesus told His disciples, “You did not choose me, but I have chosen you, that you may bear much fruit.”  (I am speaking of my own journey here, not from what I see in other people, but I trust others may have made the same errors.)  It’s easy to get our identity wrapped up in a “ministry” or a title.  We start taking on responsibilities and choosing directions in our own will, forgetting that our work is not our own.  In this case we take no thought of God’s timing, but seek to work on our schedule with a lot of striving, strategics, and of course, worry.  Maybe that’s what happened to Judas.

The disciples also started to become enamored in their position as “disciples” jockeying for status when Jesus would finally take the throne in Jerusalem.  They thought they had arrived, but they were also in training, the highest education anyone on earth can receive, walking with Jesus.  We sometimes want to save the world, do what Jesus did, but do we walk with Him now?  Do we pray like He prayed?  Then can we really hope to do what He did?

Second, we may not realize what God will do to prepare us for what He has called us to do, and get frustrated during this preparation time, maybe even giving up on the calling altogether, thinking life has passed us by as we have settled to tend sheep in the wilderness, or serve bread in Pharaoh’s prison.  We knew we were called once, but what was that dream?  What was the anointing oil?  Was it just an imagined illusion or the delusional fantasy of some old man to speak of our destiny?  Maybe we had reached what we thought was the purpose God ordained, only to see it taken away.  What if we see no burning bush, and this is all there is?  If it is, could we be content with this, if God’s will?

God prepared Paul a very long time after Damascus before he sent him on his chief calling, an Apostle to the Gentiles.  He may have done a great deal of ministry in between, and gotten discouraged at the lack of success.  After all, wasn’t he the most qualified to reach his Jewish brothers?  Who else could better explain to them how Jesus fulfilled the Torah in every way?  Why didn’t they hear him?  But all that uphill ministry wasn’t for others, it was mostly likely, for Paul.

I have experienced this first hand too.  A calling, a stepping out, and then a feeling of “this isn’t really it” and “where are the tangible fruits?”   I assumed that as soon as we followed the call, we would so soon be joyful in seeing lives changed.  Surely God would not call us to waste our time on throwing cracker crumbs to hungry lions?  But one day, I realized that during this time, there is a changed life.  Mine.  What I thought God had burdened me to do for others, is instead first working a work in me, a necessary one.

It does not mean our efforts are wasted just because we cannot see the fruit.  This is not how we gauge success in God’s kingdom.  But an army in training is allowed to practice war before they are set out into it.  I believe God in His wisdom knows what we can handle and when.  It may be before we think we are ready, but He knows what He is doing, because it is after all, Jesus in us.  His glory should be the thing we desire, no matter where He calls, high or low, slowly or quickly.  If there are people, friends or enemies, in your life to love, you have your calling.

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