The statement begs a question;
are you playing the "role" that you were born to play?
It sounds like a task of monumental proportions doesn't it?
In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he says something that is so simple, yet so profound. It's undoubtedly one of the most thought-provoking verses that I have read in the Bible lately. The book of Ephesians is a letter to a group of believers who had been following Jesus Christ for eight years, but among them, many wandered back to their sinful ways.
Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.
How 'bout them apples?
(FYI - it's a line from Good Will Hunting. Definitely a role that Matt Damon was born to play.)
Cheesy movie lines aside, this verse floors me. CALLED BY GOD. How often are we guilty of deciding for ourselves what it is that we think we should be doing with our lives? It starts so young. In elementary school, teachers ask their students what they want to be when they grow up. From there, life begins to center around that topic. Kids start preparing to get into college when they are in junior high for crying out loud! They go to college under the assumption that by going they will answer the long asked question of what they are going to be when they grow up.
Show of hands. How many adults still have no idea what they are going to be when they grow up?!
If you had asked me in elementary school what I wanted to be, I would have said a teacher. (Which, but they way, I have been told several times, may not be my strong suit.) By the time I was in high school, it was a photographer for a magazine, I even have a degree in photojournalism. However, I am not a photojournalist. Instead, I got a plain-old normal job straight out of college to pay the bills, married my college sweetheart, had two kids and now I am a stay-at-home mom with a photography business on the side.
Somewhere in the course of life, I decided that I didn't want to live the nomadic lifestyle which was surely going to accompany the life of a photojournalist, I wanted to settle down and have a family. Though I look back at my previous working life and realize how God used that experience to get me where I am now, those eight years felt like the very essence of going through the motions so to speak.
Through the epiphany that became Any Occasion Photography, I have held onto the notion that the role I was born to play was that of a photographer. Now I'm going to be really honest, my business is not hugely successful by worldly standards. I don't make a lot of money, I don't sell a lot of products and I'm OK with that.
After reading Ephesians 4:1, I've come to the conclusion that one of two things are to be credited for my lack of success in this endeavor. 1) Plain and simple, it's not God's calling for my life, or 2) I need to trust in God's timing and eventually, His calling through my photography will be fulfilled.
The point is that we are not in charge of what we do in this life. Stop ignoring God's calls, texts, voicemails, e-mails, tweets or his posts on your Facebook wall. I believe that the answer to discovering God's calling for your life is simple and scary. This I know for sure,
Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
He just wants you to do amazing things, because he already knows that you can, he already knows what they are and he's not going to stop bothering you until you respond to him.
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