What is your calling?  That is a question posed by so many people at various times and in a variety of contexts.  For the longest time I did not know what this meant or what it was to me.  As I’ve shared many times, over the last couple of years, this answer has began to gain clarity.  In a previous post, I shared that I was on a walk while out west and pondering who I was as a man in the eyes of God.  Then He showed up big time and showed me that He was about to take me down a very different path.

For the last couple of years, I have been in school, learning and studying, praying and pondering, and gaining wise counsel from trusted people around me.  Two months ago, we launched a counseling ministry within my church family, which was to be starting point in this new direction.  Over the time in my Masters program, I’ve learned some very cool concepts, techniques, and more around counseling people and counseling from a Biblical worldview.  Now came the time to put it all to work.

This has been a lot of the reason I have not written much the last many months as I prepared for launch and then began the work.  It has been a mentally and spiritually draining period of time in many aspects.  I’ve tried to figure out how to juggle this new work while still maintaining my current work in these early stages.  It’s not been easy to do.

There have been many days where I would wake-up and just wonder if I have anything to offer the people that have come to me for counsel.  I even wondered why God would choose someone like me to do something like this.  Like I’ve said many times, He completely shifted my paradigm and brought me out of my comfort zone in many ways.  Through much prayer, God has revealed that I don’t have anything to offer…He does!  With that, I just think, Whoa!!!  I have thought about that more and more and as these last couple of months have passed by, and although I know it’s very early, He is definitely right on the money.

I remember a quote I heard a few weeks back that said, “God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called.”  Don’t think I had heard that before, but as I ponder what He has done in my life and where is leading me, I think, Yes!  That’s exactly it. Then I start to think about the ragtag bunch that Jesus surrounded himself with.  None of these men were in any way qualified, but Jesus qualified them.  He taught them and equipped them, and then the Holy Spirit moved.

He qualifies the called.  I start to look at others around me that God has used in many different capacities to do His will.  All of our gifts are different, but the unifying link is that God uses all of it for His glory and we’re all a part of one body in Christ.  Answering the call is a great risk, in many capacities.  As I have seen, it pushes people away, who reject it. That’s not easy to contend with.  The beauty of it comes in pressing into Christ and in doing so, He begins to take the reigns and use the gifting that He has given us and perhaps, as in me, it has been hidden due to the road I had taken in my brokenness.

John Eldredge wrote that “An intimate encounter with Jesus is the most transforming experience of human existence. To know him as he is, is to come home.”  This is exactly what happened in my life.  Think of anyone you know that, maybe some of you, that have just been set on fire by your faith as Jesus came in and you decided to follow.  Look at his disciples.  You may think you have nothing to give anyone, but wait until that intimate encounter with Jesus.  Wait until he meets you on that road, like he met me.  You may think your not qualified, and you know what, you’re right.  He is and he will qualify and equip you, if you choose to trust in him and follow.