Magyar Egyház, 2000 (79. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
2000 / 3. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 9. oldal DISCERNING GOD’S CALL TO SERVE (The following is based on the contents of a book entitled Listening Hearts by Farnham Gill, McLeon, and Ward) Biblical References: Exodus 3:1-10, 1 Kings 17: 1-5, 1 Kings 19: 19-21, Matthew 4: 18-20 God loves each one of us, beckoning us into a relationship that is personal, intimate, and faithful. God calls out to us, inviting us to share in the divine life. How can we hear that call? What could hearing it mean as we live day to day? How can we help each other hear God’s voice and follow where God leads? How do we open that reception room in our hearts? Learning to listen with our heart may not come easily. Does God call ordinary people like us? And if so, to what? How can we distinguish God’s voice from all the other voices that clamor at us - those of our culture, peer pressure, our careers, our egos? Amid our secular lives, where can we find support for our calls? And how can we remain faithful and accountable? WHAT IS CALL? People call us to get our attention, to make contact with us, to draw us closer to them. So it is with God. A call may come as a gradual dawning of God’s purpose for our lives. It can involve an accelerated sense of inner direction. It can emerge through a gnawing feeling that we need to do a specific thing. On occasion, it can burst forth as a sudden awareness of a path that God would have us take. Call may be obscure and subtle. In whatever way call is experienced, through the centuries God has chosen to speak to us and bids us to listen. “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go: I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” (Psalm 32:8). God calls each of us. There are a variety of calls and no one call is inherently better or higher than any other. God speaks us through the language of everyday events. Each new moment of life, each new situation, the present condition of a person or community, of events, time, place, people, and circumstances - all hold clues to God’s call. Thus we often find our calls in the facts, circumstances, and concrete experiences of daily life. A call might lead us to pursue a certain occupation or carreer, as a person who feels called to help others in turmoil might become a pastoral counselor. Quite often a call becomes visable in a specific job, task, or endeavor. But a call can never be reduced to such activities. The same counselor may also be called to care for family, friends, and community as well as clients and thus must balance all of these in order to be faithful to the call. In a world that puts much emphasis on success, a too-narrow concern with occupation or carreer can make us deaf to our call. CALL TO MINISTRY Ministry is the active response to God’s call. Christian ministry is more than simply doing good. Rather, it is something that Christ does in us and through us and that we do in and through Christ. As ministers of state act not on their own but on the authority of the state that sent them, so, too, we act not on our own but on the authority of God who calls us. Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last...” (John 15:16) We do not have to be ordained to have a ministry. All Christians are called to minister both to one another and to those around them by participation in God’s work in the world. WHAT IS DISCERNMENT? “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God...” (I John 4:1) Discernment is to sort out, to distinguish, to determine, to sort out. Discernment is a sifting through our interior and exterior experiences to determine their origin. In classical spirituality, discernment means identifying what spirit is at work in a situation: the Spirit of God or some other spirit. Discernment helps a person understand the source of a call; to whom it is directed, its content, and what response is appropriate. Discernment also involves learning if one is dodging a call, is deaf to a call, or is rejecting a call. WHAT CONDITIONS HELP DISCERN GOD’S CALL? “...turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deut. 30:10) God speaks, touches, and reveals in God’s own way and in God’s own time. Still, the presence of certain conditions, such as trust, prayer, and patience, makes discernment of God’s call more likely. Having or meeting these conditions does not mean that we will discern God’s call, only that discernment becomes more likely. Trust God, listen, pray, maintain discipline and perseverance, patience and urgency, and maintain perspective.
