The Call

You get a ‘call’ from God…should I go or should I stay? What to do? Is it really God speaking? Maybe it’s my conscience or maybe I’m just hearing voices. Can I trust the feeling that I should go? Should I go or should I stay? What should I do?

I wonder if Abram had questions like this bouncing around inside his head. I wonder if he lost any sleep pondering this ‘call’ from God. I wonder if he had doubts. Don’t you wonder the same thing?

Abram wasn’t young when God ‘called’ him; neither was his wife, Sarai. You know what the scary thing is…if God ‘called’ Abram at 75 then that means he could ‘call’ us to go on a journey for him…or something equally as hard, something folks might call foolhardy. I’ve always said there is no early retirement from this call to be a follower of the Way of Jesus.

In this Lenten season how do you feel God speaking to you? As you spend time with God what is he ‘calling’ you to do? What do feel him ‘calling’ the Church to do? How does this story from Genesis speak to us today?

Let me ask you something. Have you ever felt or heard God telling you to do something that the world would call totally inappropriate? Have you ever sensed God telling you to do something that was a risk? Maybe it was risky financially or maybe it was a risk in that people would ridicule or think you foolish for doing it. What did you do?

What Abram did had a certain amount of risk and danger. Don’t you think that his family and friends probably counseled against his going on this journey? He went anyway and we should thank God for that since we who trust in Jesus are his ancestors.

So, what is God ‘calling’ us to do during this Lenten season? What radical journey is God ‘calling’ us to go on? I wonder.

You know some people give up things for Lent. Here’s something radical. What if we gave up going to church for Lent? What if we closed the doors and put up a sign that the doors weren’t going to open until Easter morning?

What if we did that and then went to live somewhere beyond our community and live simply by faith, kind of like those who are homeless. What if we just went and lived solely trusting in the things we say we trust in? What if we became people of the Way like Abram who set out on faith traveling through the wilderness? What if we gave our weekly nap in church and gave up our comfortable life?

What if we just went and put our trust in those things we talk about, the things that give us life and give us the strength to keep going when life gets tough?

What could we accomplish and how would our lives change if we trusted God, believed his words, and let them hold and guide us through the wilderness? What if we only unlocked the doors when the sun rose on Easter morning?

Would the church be the same? Now that the tomb of Jesus has been broken open will the church be ready for us?

Until then maybe we should survive on our faith and dreams and hope. In this wilderness of our world let’s trust these things.

If we took hold of the Lenten gifts of longing, expectation, and promise do you think we could recognize and know and…believe the resurrection.

What if….?