Volunteer

Calling is a tricky beast.

It is a hard to "prove" to others and even yourself. I suspect that it is recognized mostly in retrospect. 

A pretty smart guy has done a lot to shape my perspective on calling.

His name is Andy Stanley, he's a great teacher, great leader and even better boss. Somewhere in a book about people living out their calling there is a picture of Andy standing in front of the hundreds of thousands of people that he has reached through his life's continued work. He is a guy that is most definitely functioning inside his calling.

But that is not what he has to say about it.

When he is asked when he was "called" to ministry, he says that he wasn't.

He says he volunteered, and God took him up on the offer.

That's the amazing part about God as it most directly relates to how we live our life. 

He can do anything through us, but he's not going to force us to.

Ultimately we have been given a dangerous amount of freedom.

We have complete freedom to waste our lives; to show up at The End shrug and say, "here I am", or for us to throw up our hands now and say, "here I am, Send me!" 

I keep using the word calling on this blog, but I really have no clue what it is I am called to do, I just know that everyday I plan to keep saying, "send me."

In my first women's Bible study, our leader asked all us what our plans were for our lives. I had one precious tow-head toddler I spent my days at home with and I said "I'm going to be a professional volunteer."  It sounded pretty pathetic compared to the goals and coming accomplishments of some of the women in the room, but it just sort of popped out of my mouth. I was more than a little embarrassed by my blurting, but I blurt a lot and It was a familiar shade of blush that colored my face.

I like my answer more now. 

I can't wait to see what I have volunteered for.