The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man … (Genesis 2:15-16a ESVUK)
At some point in my teenage years, I was asked the wonderful question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” A seemingly regular and conventional question to get, just as I was about to finish a set of exams, as it would give a steer on what I could do after that. Working out the answer to that question, however, was not straightforward for me.
I had dreams as a child, but nothing that led me to pursue a specific career. There was not much around me to help me in decision-making either. So for a while it was guesswork. I chose subjects I thought I would enjoy in the next stage of education, and then I followed the path to get a degree, even though I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. During my university degree, I participated in a scheme that helped me secure work during the summer holidays. This experience exposed me to administration, an area in which I excelled and continued to pursue after university. It wasn’t the career path, but it was work, and it was decent work as well for me.
At that time, however, I also gained an inkling of what I wanted to do. It was also around that stage that I came across people who helped me appreciate that the question of what I wanted to do as I got older wasn’t just a matter of career.
Did you ever stop to think how the first man knew what he was supposed to do in the garden? We read how God instructed him about what he could eat and what would happen if he ate of the particular tree. Before that, though, we’re told that God placed man in the garden with a particular responsibility. It was the work that man worked out as he worked in the area where He was placed. Since then, there have been various episodes where God called out individuals to complete tasks. Whether it was Noah, Abram, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Samuel, Saul, David, or Solomon, time and again, God would make it clear that certain people were to do certain tasks in response to His call on their lives.
This was not just an individual experience, either. Families, tribes and nations were called by God and vast swathes of their identity and function were determined by the call of God.
This is what those around me got me to appreciate during the transition from university to the wider world. They helped me understand that, as a follower of Jesus Christ, I had a calling on my life. There was the general call out of darkness into light, and then there was the specific call of how I was to function in line with God’s will. There was the individual call about where I fitted, and there was the communal call of the group of believers I was with in terms of what their role in God’s scheme of things was. The nature of this call reached all areas of life, so there was nothing that shouldn’t be steered and guided by the call of God.
As Jesus was led by the calling of God on His life, it was for me to work out what His call was on my life. And working that out wasn’t about waiting for an audible voice to call out from the clouds, “Christopher, my son, I have called you to be a speaker to the nations.” Working that out was about serving others with the abilities and opportunities, and then cooperating with God by faith to follow paths He led me down, and as I did so, that call and will would become evident. That is to say, sure, there was a lot of praying and the occasional season of fasting was involved, but there was no magic formula to be applied to all as to how to work out that call of God, but it could be worked out as long as there was the intention to discern and availability to serve.
It was also great fun to see that worked out at the corporate level – whether with Christian ministries or with whole churches at various stages of their development. From the established church, working out the priorities of their next season, to the exciting adventure of working with church plants. And by fun, I do include stressful days and sleepless nights agonising over decisions and opportunities. If this were God’s business, though, we wanted to rely on God to lead and direct, and so would do what it took to get that leading, rather than leaning on our own understanding.
This was all because there was that appreciation that God, who led and directed people and groups in Scripture, didn’t stop that once the canon was complete. That also indicated that an exciting element of following Jesus was the continued discovery of where He was going and what He called us to do while we followed Him. For me, that meant being aware of when He settled and when He moved on. The movement was not about geographical shifts, but character development, moving from one degree of understanding who He is and how He is and then realising that further in the next shift that would happen.
This led to the appreciation of what it was to work it and keep it, which involved … (to be continued)
For His Name’s Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
Life With CD 