Dear Obedience

But I Don't Feel Called

A seminary student stopped me a few days ago to ask the question that troubles many young people today. It is not new. I struggled with it when I was a student, as I suppose people have for many centuries. "How can I tell if God is calling me? I don't really feel called."

Usually the question refers to a life's work. Nobody seems to stew very much about whether God is calling them to run down to the grocery store or take in a movie. We need groceries. We like movies. If the refrigerator is empty or there's a good movie in town, we jump into the car and go. Even Christians do this. Spiritual "giants" do it, I guess. They don't even pray about it. But this matter of the mission field. Oh, God, do you want me there? Shall I risk everything and launch out to some third world backwater, some waterless desert, some dreadful place where there are starving children, refugees, Marxists, dictators? Are you asking me to drag my wife, my children, to a place like that?

The call of God to Saul of Tarsus was dramatic--he was blinded, knocked flat, and clearly spoken to. God got his attention. But later in Antioch the Holy Spirit spoke to certain prophets and teachers. "Set apart Barnabas and Saul for me, to do the work to which I have called them." That was good enough. Barnabas and Saul obeyed the divine call, even though it came through other men.

It was during the Mass of the Feast of St. Matthias, in a chapel in the midst of a great, silent forest, that Francis of Assisi heard the call of God. It was not through an angel or a disembodied voice from beyond, but through the reading of the Gospel for that day: "Go and preach the message, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!' ...Freely you have received, freely give." When the young man heard the words read by the priest, he felt that God had finally illumined his path. He did not, however, trust his feelings. He asked the priest to explain the passage. The priest said that Christ's disciples were to preach repentance everywhere, to take nothing with them, and to trust God alone to supply their needs.

Francis thrilled with happiness at this revelation and exclaimed enthusiastically: "That is what I want! That is what I seek! That is what I long to do with all my heart!" On the instant, he threw away his staff, took off his shoes, and laid aside his cloak, keeping only a tunic; replaced his leather belt with a cord, and made himself a rough garment, so poor and so badly cut that it could inspire envy in no man.

Omer Englebert
St. Francis of Assisi

There are at least six lessons in this short story:

1. The man wanted God's direction.
2. He went to church, where he could hear godly preaching.
3. He listened to the Word of God.
4. He asked for help from one who was his spiritual superior.
5. He accepted the help.
6. He acted at once.

It is significant that he found in the words of the Lord the answer to a deep longing in his heart.

In C. S. Lewis's Preface to Paradise Lost, he describes Aeneas' unfaltering search for the "abiding city," his willingness to pay the terrible price to reach it at last, even though he casts a wistful side-glance at those not called as he is. "This is the very portrait of a vocation: a thing that calls or beckons, that calls inexorably, yet you must strain your ears to catch the voice, that insists on being sought, yet refuses to be found." Then there were the Trojan women who had heard the call, yet refused to follow all the way, and wept on the Sicilian shore. "To follow the vocation does not mean happiness," Lewis writes, "but once it has been heard, there is no happiness for those who do not follow."

Yes. My heart says yes to that. What agonies I suffered as a young woman, straining my ears to catch the voice, full of fear that I would miss it, yet longing to hear it, longing to be told what to do, in order that I might do it. That desire is a pure one. Most of our desires are tainted at least a little, but the desire to do the will of God surely is our highest. Is it reasonable to think that God would not finally reveal his will to us? Is it (we must also ask) reasonable not to use our powers of reason, given to us by him? Does it make more sense to go to the grocery store because groceries are needed than to go to foreign lands because workers are needed? If we deny the simple logic of going where the need is most desperate, we may, like the Trojan women, spend the rest of our lives suspended

Twixt miserable longing for present land
And the far realms that call by the fates' command.
Aeneid, V, 656

While Virgil wrote of mythical heroes, his lines echo the more ancient lines of the Psalms which are rich with assurances of God's faithful guidance of those who honestly desire it, and of the lasting rewards of obedience.

Happy the men whose refuge is in thee,
whose hearts are set on the pilgrim ways!
The Lord will hold back no good thing
from those whose life is blameless.
84:5, 11 NEB

Very near is the Lord to those who call to him, in singleness of heart.
He fulfills their desire if only they fear him."
145:18, 19 NEB

It is the sixth lesson from the St. Francis story that is most often overlooked. Obedience is action. Often we do not have any instant light on the particular question we've been asking God, but he has shown us something we ought to do. Whatever it is, however unrelated it may seem to the "big" decision, do it. Do it at once. We thus put ourselves in the path of God's will. A single step taken, if we have his Word as a lamp for our feet, throws sufficient light for the next step. Following the Shepherd we learn, like sheep, to know his voice. We will become acquainted with his call and will not follow a stranger's.

Copyright© 1988, by Elisabeth Elliot
all rights reserved.