Video - "The Power of Your Story"

Is there a SPECIFIC calling for each of us?

Is "calling" simply doing whatever is in front of us - just living from our heart wherever we find ourselves; or did God intend something more specific and tailored for each of us?  In other words, is calling general or specific? 

There's certainly validity in assuming calling is general -- that each of us should love and relate from the new reality of Christ-within, wherever we find ourselves.  But I'd suggest that there's more:  Paul had a specific calling to Gentiles; Moses was to rescue Israel from Egyptian tyranny; and Jesus' calling was to reveal the Father.  There was intent and deliberate direction in each of those cases.  Movement with meaning.

There's a reason you have the gifts you do -- they benefit a certain group of people who need exactly what you offer.  There are also contexts that will be more suitable to your passions and skills than others.  For example, the institutional church was not an appropriate context for my gifts.  As a former pastor, I was even told right from the start that I would never find a role in the system where I could bring what I most wanted to.  If only I had known then how true that would be.

God intended something distinct and distinguishing when he introduced you to the world.  You clearly have latitude and a voice in shaping your unfolding story; but it's better to move through life knowing the specific thing (s) you offer.  Christ lives in you, as you:  He has bound himself to your personality, your experiences, and your unique brilliance.  There's nothing general about you. 

“You have so many extraordinary gifts.  How can you expect to live an ordinary life?”   -- Marmie’s counsel to Jo in Little Women.

Finding your hidden vein of gold

Quite often, we're asked to be honest about our weaknesses and shortcomings -- job interviews ask us to disclose this, churches obsess about it,  and accountability groups major on our failings.  There's nothing wrong with being honest about our weaknesses, but there's something more worthy of our attention:  it's the vein of gold within:

"Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness; yet, perhaps, as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of." -- Jonathan Swift

The vein of gold is where God focuses his attention:  he is obsessed with what's most alive, radiant, and strong in you.  A vibrant seam of gold.

Trusting your heart is the biblical thing to do.

It's o.k. to trust your heart now.  In fact, Jesus wants you to.

Your heart can be trusted now because it is no longer 'deceitfully wicked.'  If you follow Christ, it would be wrong to mistrust your heart:  It would be at cross-purposes with what God is doing in your life to constantly hold your desires under suspicion.

I recently asked a group of men to raise their hands if they thought that trusting their hearts was the right thing to do.  About a third of the hands went up.  The majority thought that holding their heart under suspicion was the biblical thing to do.  As we unpacked the truth of their new hearts, given to them when they said 'yes' to Jesus, we exposed the debilitating assumptions they were taught about their hearts.

I explained that within the new heart Jesus gave them came new and noble desires -- and that dismissing those desires as selfish or inherently wicked would prevent them from doing certain things like:

• discovering their unique calling
• loving God and loving each other

But not all desires are created equal
There are, of course, competing desires that can be whispered to us, but those desires are not ours.  They are either whispered by the Enemy, or our culture, or our 'flesh' (which is no longer us, not our real self);  but those desires are not our desires.  False desires are like thorns lodged in the skin -- they are embedded in our bodies, but not of our bodies.  The thorns cry out for our attention, but our health lies in the vitality already present in our bodies.  Our concern must focus on what's most alive and already present within us.  That's where God focuses his energy.

Ask God to reveal the desires of your heart. 
Stay with the process.  It's what he's up to in your life.  Trusting your heart is biblical.

Don't let pragmatism kill your dream.

Pragmatism can kill your desires.  Statements like the following will sabotage budding dreams:

• "How will we pull this off?"  (vs Why should we do this?)
• "I'd love to pursue this, but I don't have the time, money, resources." 

• "I've always dreamed of becoming a [________], but how will I provide for my family?"
• "I really want to move forward in my calling, but I guess I'll wait until the economy rebounds a bit."

Let me also be clear that there must be discernment involved.  Launching into your dream or calling without having heard some directive from God can be foolish and bring about unnecessary pain.  Listening for his counsel and wisdom is critical. That having been said, don't allow pragmatism to prevent you from taking the necessary, God-inspired risks that will bring you further into your place in the Story.

Pragmatism's favorite word is "how?"  Someone has to answer that question, but we can leave that to our Supply Captain who has any and every resource at his disposal. 

God recently asked me and my wife to move our family 1,000 miles with no job.  I knew that's how he wanted us to proceed because it's what I had been hearing for two years.  Believe me, it was tempting to hedge our bets and say, "Sure we'll move, God;  if you give us a job first."  Or, "Let's wait until we've got some good job leads." 

In fact, our trust did waver during the journey.  Other's we hoped would support us thought we were nuts.  But in the end, we moved without a job.  And God showed up.  Brilliantly.  He provided a job for my wife that couldn't have come any other way than by his intervention.  That's just one of the ways in which he took care of things.

Pragmatism could have killed our dream, for we did not have a clue as to "how" God was going to provide.  But our Supply Captain always has something up his sleave...

Locate the wound.

How do you know what your calling is?

One of the ways is to locate the wound.  There are many cuts, punctures and breaks we've suffered, but if you look, there will be a central defining wound -- perhaps going back to childhood.  That wound will carry a heartbreaking message with it, a sentence of despair.

In my case, the journey from childhood to adulthood was a cycle of being missed and dismissed.  I had something to offer, yet no one seemed to affirm it or draw it out.  There was no one to call out my gifts and the heart I wanted to offer.  The Church didn't help.  With crushing force, I was thrown out of pastoral ministry because I challenged assumptions leaders were making.  Though truthfully, I never fit the mold.  I had too much passion about what I wanted to offer, and the institution said there was no place for me ... over and over again.  The institution thought my role was dutiful compliance, as they ordered me to take on whatever scripts and roles they thought were necessary to keep the religious machinery going.

The wounding over the last four decades was clear:  "No one wants what you have to offer."

A wound of rejection.  A cycle of dismissal. 
The very thing I wanted to offer was being shut down. 

Locate the wound.  Your wound will be the ashes out of which your glory and brilliance rise.  Jesus is in the process of redeeming and healing your wound, turning shame into glory.  The very thing at risk of being shut down and sabotaged is the very thing you are called to. 

So you might guess that over four decades, I searched hard and long for validation and clarity.  I was desperate to know what I was called to.  "How do I find out?  What are the particulars of my calling?"  And God brought people into my life to call out and affirm the gifts and passions they knew were there.  Slowly I began to heal.

Remember that your wound will be a clue to your glory.  You might guess that, because of my own wound, I enjoy helping people recover their own identity, longings, and offerings.  I want them to get their noble and unique heart back.  

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Have you discovered your wound and how it points to your glorious new identity? 

QUOTES for shaping your own story

In my last post, I told you about Dan Allender's book, To Be Told -- know your story, shape your future.  Here are some great quotes from the book that I think you may find helpful:

The unique glory you offer:

What about God am I most uniquely suited to reveal to others?

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Living by the wrong scripts:

They have lived less in the light of the story of God and more by the inevitabilities of life's demands.  In other words, they allow circumstances to write their story.
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We have permission to shape our story:

We are called to co-author the ending [rest of our story] according to the themes that the primary Author has penned for us.  We are called to take up our pen and follow him.  It is the enormous humility of the sovereign Author to give us a voice in the dialogue.  And not only does he want us to write, but he cheers us on.
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Discovering your calling:

But how in the world do we know our calling?  I've seen that our calling always seems associated with the name that God gives each one of us.
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Vicarious living:

Too many people are missing their story because they're watching the stories of others.
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Your unique role:

God has ... given us a role that will reveal something about him that no one else's story can reveal in quite the same way.

Know your story - shape your future

I'm reading a great book by Dan Allender called, To Be Told -  God invites you to co-author your future.  Discover how your tradegies to this point have shaped your story and "unnamed you," sabotaging your identity.

And then learn how God wants to work with you to shape the rest of your story; so that you can live in your true and glorious name.  What does God want to say to the world through you, your unique story?

'WHY DESIRE MATTERS IN OUR JOURNEY' -- new podcast

Why desire matters in our journey -- Jim tells the story of how his 5-year journey to find a better town for his family and a more sustainable life has now come full circle; and how desire was the glue that held his dreams together when he wanted to give up.  You will also discover that your deep desires matter to God and that he will use them to give you answers and direction.

Download Jim's podcasts (The Good and Noble Heart podcasts) on iTunes.

Seven quotes on 'CALLING'

Heart and callling are inextricably linked:  you can't know your calling without knowing the deep desires of your heart -- and believing that they are trustworthy.  Within your new heart lie desires God is awakening. Here are some quotes on 'calling:'

• “For the most part, I do the thing which my own nature prompts me to do.  It is embarrassing to earn so much respect and love for it.”  -- Albert Einstein
  


• “Progress is not created by contented people.”  -- Frank Tyger
  


• “Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born.  And what is it that reason demands of him?  Something very easy – that he live in accordance with his own nature.”  (Seneca)


• “The place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”   -- Frederick Buechner
  
  
• "[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather."   --Frederick Buechner
  
  
• "What I do is me: For that, I came."  -- Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins

• "What is in you that is so unique, that if you don't live with it, the Kingdom of God will live without it?"  -- Gary Barkalow, www.thenobleheart.com

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Listen to the podcast:  "A life of desire"

Listen to the podcast:  "Recovering our desire"

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How about you?  Do you have any quotes on calling/purpose you can share?

Podcast - RECOVERING OUR DESIRE

Recovering our desire -- Jim is a guest again on Joel Brueseke's Growing in Grace Together  podcast.  They talk about our fears to trust our desires, because we've mistrusted our hearts.  They also talked about the various sources of desires and the consequences of not trusting the desires that are in our new and good hearts.

Here's Joel's podcast site

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Get the podcasts on iTunes here.

HOW 'The Prisoner' raises issues of our own identity

"I AM NOT A NUMBER!!"
 
AMC TV Chanel's mini-series, The Prisoner stars Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings-X-Men) and Jim Caviezel (The Thin Red Line-The Passion of the Christ):

From the series synopsis:

A man, known as Six, finds himself inexplicably trapped in The Village with no memory of how he arrived. As he explores his environment, he discovers that his fellow inhabitants are identified by number instead of name, have no memory of any prior existence, and are under constant surveillance. Not knowing whom to trust, Six is driven by the need to discover the truth behind The Village, the reason for his being there, and most importantly --  how he can escape.

The struggle for our hearts will always involve the issue of identity in some way.  "Who are you?"  is the question the Devil used to distract and tempt Jesus himself: 

• "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."  (Matt. 4:3)
• "If you are the son of God, ...throw yourself down."  (Matt. 4:6)

And the Enemy, through the insults of the crowd tempts him, "Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!"

If we don't know the answer to the question, "Who are you?"  we will fall for anything.

The attack comes against identity.  Your identity.  What is in you that the Enemy or the world would snuff out?  You are not ordinary.  There's no such thing in the Kingdom.  So what is the noteworthy glory you have been given that the world needs?   God is in the process of unveiling your unique self to the world. It is his good pleasure.

[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all . . . rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather.   --Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

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What did you think of The Prisoner mini-series?

The pleasure of your purpose

I once asked someone how a person discovers their purpose. Let's face it, many people are stuck in jobs they despise, spending endless hours engaged in actities that mean almost nothing to them.  And they are hungry for more. 

The person I asked quoted Frederick Buechner (who is always good to quote) saying, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

So what brings you a vitality of heart, so that when you are engaged in it, you "feel his pleasure" as the great Scottish runner, Eric Liddell, once said; and you feel your pleasure?  Where is your deep gladness, your raison d'etre? 

You must listen to your heart, but will find it very difficult to do so if you do not begin trusting the deep desires God has placed there.  After all, you have a new heart, and new set of desires that will guide you if you listen to them.  God has given you permission to do so.

Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born.  And what is it that reason demands of him?  Something very easy - that he live in accordance with his own nature."
 - SENECA

For the sake of the Story

Since all the world is but a story,
it were well for thee to buy
the more enduring story rather than
the story that is less enduring.

(The Judgement of St. Columba of Scotland)

Here's another reason it's critical to get your heart back -- your good and noble heart: your contribution to the Grand Tale depends upon it. If you see yourself primarily as a mess -- a sinful and sorry creature whom God has to graciously tolerate -- you won't be offering your true self. And your true self is exactly what is needed.

You need the resources of your transformed heart to love well, live well, and fight well. Jesus has given you his own heart -- not a heart simply like his -- but his own heart. For the sake of the Story, take it. Nourish it. Live from it. Allow God's Spirit to awaken it.

Since this unfolding Story is about the God who is always up to something new, he will choose the new creation -- that is, your transformed heart -- as the means to advance his plot.

Without either knowing your heart is now good, or choosing it today and each day, you will remain disoriented and disconnected -- to both your grand and unveiled glory, and to the world's need for you to live from your restored and super-natural heart.  Allow this new super-natural goodness to radiate outwards, transforming you with the ever-increasing life and enticing goodness Jesus enjoyed.

The Story needs you. Not simply the forgiven you. But the unveiled you.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s
glory, are being transformed into his likeness with
ever-increasing glory; which comes from the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18

Healing our identity

We're often told to "find your identity in Christ alone" so that we don't take our need for validation to other, false substitutes.  I think that's a good idea; but I think most of us don't get the follow-up conversation we need on this issue.

For example, "What the heck does that mean?  How am I supposed to 'find my identity only in Christ?'  Do I pray more?  -  Try harder to think how much God loves me when I feel wounded?" 

How do you obtain an "in Christ alone" identity?" Here are two things that come to me:

1.  It's about being a daughter or a son, first.  More than what we can offer the world by means of our giftedness or calling, we first rest in, then offer our identity as sons and daughters of God.  This is often particularly difficult for me, as I want you to tell me how much what I do for you means.  I want to find validation in how much you respect me as a writer and teacher.  But this can never, no matter how much our gifts are genuinely needed, heal our identities.  We must find confidence in our identities as sons and daughers, first.

2.  It's about hearing our new name.  Abram becomes 'Abraham.'  Jacob becomes 'Israel.'  Saul becomes 'Paul.'  The new name expresses your new identity, uniqueness, and what you mean to God in a way that no one else does.  It is your particularity.  Hearing your new name helps heal the wounds -- those blows that were designed to take you out of play and to prevent you from offering what the world needs from you.  As for me, I remember God whispering, "Jim, you are my Aragorn."  He may not ever whisper that to you, but he knew what it would mean for me to hear that.

Listen, daughter or son, and rest there.

Then listen for your new name.  It is waiting for you.

And the word became...you.

There was more than one incarnation.  Jesus wasn't the first word that God made flesh.  There were many before him, and many since.  He was simply the fullest, unhindered and truest incarnation of God's speaking.

God creates by speaking:  Power goes out,  creativity happens.  When God wants to get something done, he speaks. Whatever it is -- an orchid, a zebra, a person -- he voices it and something is formed.

You, too, are a spoken incarnation, a living word (small "w," of course).  As Robert Benson suggests in his book, The Echo Within - Finding Your True Calling, there is an incarnate word that has been spoken into you from day one.   And that incarnate word is unique to you.  (Your new heart is at the center of your unique identity.)  Since God had something specific in mind that his world needed, he voiced that specific thing into you:  "Now I will give the world what it needs through the incarnate word, "your name here".

When God works in a person, he does it in them, as them.  You express something God wants to say, but he does so as you, not simply in you.  He is making his ongoing incarnation personal.  There is nothing generic about it.  As God uniquely and supremely made a statement in the fleshed-out Word, Jesus, so he continues to make a statement in you, as you.  You are the new fleshed-out word.

And the word became...you.