Consider Your Calling

Though we still have two feet of standing snow in our yard, spring is eventually coming, and so is South Dakota’s class-action lawsuit against Punxsutawney Phil! Seasons change, and transitions eventually occur regardless of our readiness or restlessness! Kari and I are currently going through multiple transitions. We are empty nesting, expecting our first grandchild, and seeking the Lord’s guidance regarding our next chapter of parenting, marriage, and ministering together. For me, it has been a time of contemplation. With life’s many transitions, perhaps you can also relate to such prayerfully reflective seasons.

“Consider your calling.”  Paul wrote these words to his fellow Christ-followers in 1 Corinthians 1:26. Applied to us, this is a contemplative request to consider the manner of our conversion and our faith journey to date. For me, it is easiest to trace my calling and faith journey through geography. Our friend created a decorative montage of all the regions we have called home throughout our globe-trotting life together. Iowa, Missouri, Texas (yes, you read that correctly), Siberian Russia, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and South Dakota. Each location contains tales and monuments of God’s working, our brokenness, our growth, faith in action, victory, defeat, joy, wonder, tears, and a clear continuity of calling. I find Paul’s invitation to consider our calling helpful, encouraging, and comforting. As we pause to consider our calling, God becomes much more in our hearts. We find that his working in our lives defies worldly standards of nobility, power, strength, and wisdom, leaving us to boast in God alone.

Every district church and every redeemed church member has professed a calling to trust Christ, to follow him by faith, to obey God’s word, to advance and strengthen Christ’s church, and to pursue a Great Commission aim. Seasons change in every life and in every church, but at this juncture of generational baton passes, pastoral transitions, and shifting cultural landscapes, let us consider our calling…for it remains constant and steady when all around us is changing. And let us never forget that it is because of God that we are in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30). Praise be to God who became to us redemption, righteousness, sanctification, and wisdom with which we can comprehend our calling as Christ-followers and obediently pursue his fame and glory in all seasons of life.

He is worthy!

Jim Capaldo
Regional President
Converge Heartland