God is Making Me

In one of the classes I'm taking at the School of Ministry--Foundations of Christian Ministry--we're talking a lot about discovering the calling God has placed on our lives. This is a HUGE task, of course, because basically it feels like you're trying to put something that is too big for words into a box that is too constricting, too limited, and too pre-shaped by human hands to contain something whose shape is such that human measurements and descriptions are inadequate.

Still, words and ideas are all we have available this side of eternity. So kudos to my teacher for showing us how to use what God has given us to discover what He is calling us to be (both at present and in the future).

What' s on my heart and mind right now is the indescribable sovereignty of God in taking our lives and making something BIG for Him out of it. When it comes to the ministry in our lives, God doesn't start with nothing--He takes the raw material of our lives to build a destiny for us. Our encounters with Him, our hot buttons and passions, our many screw-ups, the things that make us different from anyone else...There is so much stuff to reflect on. In class last night, I started thinking about all of the places God has taken me, all of the things I've seen and done and felt and dreamed, the things that get me excited and the things that really piss me off, the stupid things I've done and the shame and fear that has resulted, the people who have hurt me and the people who have blessed me...the good, the bad, the ugly...

I realize now that God wants to use--and IS using--ALL of these things mentioned above to make ME. He made me in my mother's womb, and now He's MAKING me. He's weaving together my past experiences--even the things I wished I'd never gone through--with my passions and abilities, my mistakes, my dreams, my hopes, my downfalls...all of these things and more will come together to form a calling that God has placed on my life.

Pastor Sam used a very accurate analogy to describe a calling. Our life is a supermarket. All of our experiences, feelings, passions, abilities, hang-ups, etc, are like different items in a shopping cart. Our calling is not so much the sum of all the items in the cart, but rather the MEAL that is going to be prepared with the items in the cart. So God might use the things in my cart to cook up spaghetti casserole, or to prepare a meat stew. Only He knows, until He chooses to reveal this to us. And this is where I'm at right now: I have a large number of ingredients and utensils in my cart, and I have a general idea of what kind of meal it is going to be...but the specifics? No clue. And I'm OK with that.

What's in your shopping cart? What kind of meal do you feel will be prepared with it?