“How had I heard from God?”
“How did I know it was God—not somebody else—calling me to preach?”
“Had my calling been validated and affirmed by the church—by those people who knew me and loved me best?”
“Was I sure?”
“Was I really sure… so sure of my call that I would never doubt that God had called me to preach His word?”
“Yes,” I answered, “I was sure I had been called.” I was never more sure of anything in my life.
“Good,” he said. “There will be days when the call is all you have.”
And there were those days. Days when the only reason I didn’t cut and run was I knew I had been called—called by Christ and sent to His church.
It is a funny place to live, this place between the calling and the sending, but we come from a long line of people who have been there.
- Moses was called to liberate God’s children and sent to tell Pharaoh
- Isaiah was called and sent to a people God told him wouldn’t listen
- Paul was called from his own people and sent to the Gentiles of the Roman Empire.
And you and me—we’re called from whatever lives we had dreamed of and sent to His people. We weren’t called because we’re talented or even needed. We’re called because, as Paul reminded Timothy, we’re living proof, “If God can save us, He can save anyone.”
And sent to a people where brokenness and confusion made God desperate to reach them.
So, He sent us.
And we show up, with nothing more than this…
“We’ve been with Jesus and He loves you. He sent us to tell you.”
It’s all we have. It’s all any of us have ever had—us, Moses, Isaiah, Paul—any of us.
We were called. We were sent. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we stay.
There is something about these people. There is something about us. There is something about this moment and what God is doing in it that makes the gospel real in all of its transforming glory.
That’s why He called us. That’s why He sent us. It’s all we have.
