Chapter 1: My Calling

August 26, 2011

(yes, I wrote this chapter before the intro)

CHAPTER 1:  My Calling

       So I'm sitting here thinking that a good place to start would be Chapter one.  I mean, that's how all good books start right?  At the beginning?  At least that's what I've gotten from the books I've read.  Anyway, so I figured the best place to start would be with expressing what I believe my calling is from God.
       Now, remind you at this point in my life it's only been a few months since I've been saved so it's not like I have a 40-year plan allready mapped of where I'm headed.  But God does.  And that's all that matters.  All I can do is listen.  So what I actually thought of doing was to have an "updated" version of this chapter every few months or so, as you will see as you continue to read the chapters.
      So here we go.  My calling.  Gosh, I never knew it would be this hard to put it into words.  Let's get a few things straight first.  As I've stated earlier, I am no book writer.  I don't have a talent to write, I just simply write whatever comes to mind.  Now my brother, he can write.  If you're looking for something interesting to read, read his stuff, now that's cool stuff.  But I'm no writer.  I just believe that at this point in my life, writing things down is the best way for me to express my feelings for God, and if this is what he has called me to do for now, then I will do it.
       A litte side note, an interesting story that happened to me maybe no more than a week after I started my journey with God.  My buddy Dan had taken me to this church gathering that was just filled with hundreds, possibly thousands of people that were just on fire for God.  Remind you that I'm brand new to all this and had never experienced anything like this before.  And it was huge, I'm talking atomic bomb, huge.  Anyway, we got there, great music, great message, amazing group of people but what was funny was that at the end of the service, the speaker had everyone play this little "game".  We each grabbed a person we didn't know and the point was to tell each other what there plan was for doing Gods work over the next five to ten years.  So what happened was, when it was my turn, the only thing I had planned on doing was praying before going to bed that night.  Maybe brush my teeth and take a shower but that's about it.  There was no way I had the next five years of my life planned out.  So basically I looked like a "deer caught in the headlights" for a few minutes.  But hey, I was knew to the faith and my partner understood.  The most important thing to remember here is to not worry so much about the future.  Sometimes, even with God in our lives, all he wants us to do is experience his love.  Not worry about the future, or the bills, or even what your calling is.  Sometimes, God just wants us to experience his love.
       Now that it's been a while, and I've had an understanding of some of the few things God is calling me to do, I can finally express them into words.  At this point in my walk with Jesus, there are many unanswered questions and alot of unknown beliefs I have yet to learn.  But as far as what I've heard from God and what I've seen, I've gathered a few things together.  Biggest thing I've learned is, and we all know it to be the golden rule in the Bible, always make sure God is first in your life.  I've had many problems with this before and it was difficult giving up the things that I thought were most important to me.  But I gave them up, one at a time, and the blessings just started pouring.
       As for my calling, it is but a dirt road waiting to be paved.  But don't get me wrong, there is a road.  God has gifted me with TONS of talents.  Some I have passed up and forgotten about, some that I have used for the wrong reasons, and some that are still waiting to be released.  But that's all God needs you to realize.  He has a plan for each individual person but it's up to you to follow it.  What I've started to come to realize is that God gave me a very special gift.  One that actually took me AWAY from God in order to realize it (but that's a different chapter).  But what God has given me was the ability to be PASSIONATE.  Now this may seem like a weird gift to be given.  Usually you hear people say:  'I have a gift to teach the word of God' or 'I have a talent for music'.  And these were actually the talents I had been looking for when trying to figure out what mine really were.  But mine, mine was deeper than that.  Mine took a little bit more than just using the simple senses of sight or sound to figure out.  I actually had to....here it comes........THINK.   Oh my gosh, it hurt so bad to do that.  I actually had to....you know....think, in order to figure out what my talents were.
       What happened was, when I finally figured out what my talent was...'passion'...there was still one more problem--A passion for WHAT?  Oh great, more thinking.  (OWW).  Later on, I come to the realization that God didn't give me anything in specific to be passionate about.  He gave it to me to use in whatever way I wanted to use it.  His only guarantee he gave me was that whatever I was passionate about, I would be 100% passionate about it.  Not just some little speck of passion some people claim to have.  No.   God gave me a real PASSION for whatever I wanted.  Let me say that word just one more time...PAAAASSSIONNNN-UH.  That sounds awesome.
               So right now, what we have is a man that is on FIRE for God and a talent that we know now to be 'PASSION'.  So now what?  There's still that question and the whole reason behind this chapter...what the heck is this guy's calling?  Well, here's a little something to know about myself.  Growing up, I was never exactly the greatest kid in the world, but hey, who the heck ever is?  We all make mistakes right?  Well another "gift" that God gave me was the ability to make every WRONG decision possible. Ya, you read that correctly.  And I actually do view it as a gift.  Maybe not the gift of "messing up", but the gift of learning from my mistakes.  I happen to be one of three other brothers I have and there's no way in the world I could ever compare to how "good" they were growing up.  Never made a wrong decision before, never messed up or did anything bad.   It's like my brothers took all the good "decision-making" genes and I got left with making all the crappy decisions in life.  Thanks alot BROS.  What's good about this is that I actually learned to use this to my advantage.  You know that "learn from you failures" phase you hear people talk about alot, well it certainly worked for me.  I may have messed up alot but I made it a habit to learn from every screwed up decision I made.  It was another one of God's gifts that actually took me a while to figure out.  After years and years of constant failure, I was left with nothing but "first-hand experience" on the deepest, darkest times in every person's life.  And it was God's gift to me to go out into the world and just teach (if only I knew how to teach).
       So right now we have a fire-burning, passionate-filled, first-hand experienced young man who STILL hasn't given you his actual calling yet.  You wanna know what my calling is?  Guess what, it's the same as yours.  And your fathers.  And your mothers.  And your brothers and sisters and cousins and friends and EVERYONE else's in this world.

                              "GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF MEN"

BOOM!!!   

       It's everyone's calling.  It's Gods' message to EVERYONE.  E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E!!!  It doesn't even matter how you go about doing it.  Just make sure you do it.
      So here's an example of how it should look.  My 'CALLING' would be to use my 'FIRE-BURNING', 'PASSIONATE-FILLED' soul to keep on learning and studying the word of God and to go out into the world making disciples of men by giving them my FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE with what I've been through, what I've learned along the way, and how I still continue to live a 'passionate' life for God.