Calling Podcast Episode

Calling is bigger than the actual assignment. Again, it is not so much about location as much as it is about the process in the heart in which you are approaching whatever you are moving into. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

I am Matt Kauffman. Amber Miller’s with me again today. Amber, welcome back into the show. Hey, it’s good to be back today. You all know Amber as a former ACCFS clinician, and we’re glad to have Amber back. Put her on loan. Are you on loan to Harvest Call? On lease? On contract? I think it’s an official, yeah. 

I’m over there now. There it is. So now you all know, I know. She is permanent with HarvestCall. I’ve had her on the show here before since she’s been there, but just a little bit, Amber, I’ll just kind of cut straight to the point. You’re that contact point between a person of interest and going on the field. 

In fact. If people are interested, and I’ll say this as a free blurb for you, Amber, if anybody’s interested in getting involved in HarvestCall as a missionary, contact Amber. Am I right about that? Yeah, that’s great. I always appreciate those free plugs, and that’s all true. I am that point of contact. So, if anyone is interested, and again, it might not even be with service within HarvestCall, but just interested in missions in general and understanding what’s out there. 

I’d love to hear from you. This really leads to today’s conversation, this concept of calling, and I’m really going to speak specifically to the Christian community because I think it is somewhat of a Christian term, right, of being called. I’m just going to assume that we know what I mean by that in the sense that, oh, yeah, God has called you to a certain task. 

Now, all of that to say that I think all of us wrestle with that concept at some level. One might be marriage, right? Could be another one a job could be a third person on whether they should go to the mission field. Now I see you as a person who interacts with people on this level of calling, I would imagine that is often in the conversation. 

Am I or am I not called to go? So, I’m going to start like this. I’d love to hear your top five pieces of advice. Yeah, so we’ll do some snapshots here. The first point that I think would be good for us to talk through further, Matt, would be that there is purpose in the process of being called, not just so much about the calling. 

Two, that as we consider calling, we really should pattern it after Jesus’ example in Scripture. The third point would probably be that calling is really about becoming versus the end result, and it’s bigger than the actual assignment we land in. And then finally, I would just add that calling can really be confirmed through community instead of isolation, and so leaning into community. 

Okay, I love those, Amber, and I think a lot of them make sense just in one reading, but let’s take each one at a time, and fill it out a little bit. You started with the first one, there’s purpose in the process. And I would have to believe that’s a very hopeful statement. Yeah. You know, an example is that sometimes I will interact with someone who is inquiring about missionary service, and they start that journey, and they start walking through some of the different interviews and steps. 

And for various reasons, I’ve had people that don’t ever end up on the mission field. And again, there are so many different reasons why that happens, and it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a mark of failure. Exactly. It’s not like they heard God wrong in that. It was God simply asking them to take these steps. 

And I do think you see that in Scripture too, where sometimes God asks people to take steps forward, and then it probably turned out differently than they would have expected. I think this particular piece of advice really is, faith is required for it. To say that God’s got something larger at play here, and I’m going to be faithful in this next step, not knowing necessarily what the 10th one will be. 

I love that. Let’s go on to the second one then. The second one, you said patterned after Jesus. So do tell, what pattern do we see in Jesus? You see Jesus living life as someone who was sent to earth. And I think about passages like John, where he says, as thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world. 

Jesus says, send them just as you have sent me. Am I getting that right? That’s got to anoint our concept of calling in a really special way. Right. Again, to be able to recognize that the Lord himself modeled this for us and that he has so chosen to reenact that in us. It was so much more about who he was than any one thing specifically that happened along the journey. 

And I think that’s just another thing that we need to remember as we go about life, is that it is really about who we are becoming as we go through our days. And again, the heart in which we proceed with life versus just stepping back and waiting for a big burning bush to direct us on this one path and then we’re good for the next five years. 

All right, so you’ve touched on a couple of things that have triggered further inquiry. That burning bush, we’re going to set that aside, but we’re going to come back to it because that has a lot to do with calling, doesn’t it? And it very much shapes the way we view it. But this concept of Jesus, as you talked about Jesus in that moment, Amber, I got this picture, it so resonated with me, that he really was sent and called to share himself. 

Yes, he got things done, and you could, in some ways, put some sort of job description behind him. But the job description that surpassed them all, was that he presented and gave Jesus to everybody. If we, if you and I and everyone listening are called to just present ourselves to the world and to be those sent people, sometimes it doesn’t matter whether we’re sent to Champaign, Illinois, or whether we’re sent to Jamaica or Mexico. 

It is, again, just so much more about who we are as we go through that. All right, some lights are starting to go on for me now, Amber. It’s very much a larger view of what it is to work out one’s calling. Jesus was called and he presented himself to the world and his calling was really about others. And you’re saying that our callings are going to be after the pattern of Jesus in a presentation of ourselves for the blessings of others. 

Is that a fair statement? So, I think the next point that you made really had to do with that concept of being. Help bring that down to us. Yeah. It is more about, again, the fruit that you are bearing. I go back to John again. I think around John 15 where it talks about bearing fruit and just how we have been called to do that. 

And so how do you do that? It’s not always by some sort of work that you are doing, but it is modeling the fruit of the Spirit. And so, as I walk through this, am I becoming more loving? Am I becoming more forbearing? Am I growing in all of those attributes and becoming more like Jesus by doing that? Or am I so focused in and tunnel visioned in on this specific action, should I move here or should I do this? 

We are called into being, aren’t we? A chosen generation. Absolutely. Called to be a chosen generation. You are called to be a holy priesthood, for example. And so that’s straight out of Scripture. If you want to know your calling, you’re called to be these things to God and to the world, I would guess, right? 

Right. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. I think that’s a great lens, Amber, that I think is helpful, as we all work through our callings. Am I called to this? Am I called to that? Well, we are called to be. And I’d have to think, when we become settled in who we are, that goes a long way in getting us to behave and to do and bring forth the fruit that we’re probably really obsessing over. 

Is that a true statement? That is, yeah. I agree. So, the fourth one. So, kind of going right off of what we had just talked about, about being, calling is bigger than the actual assignment, or the actual answer that you receive. Again, it is not so much about location as much as it is about the process in the heart in which you are approaching whatever you are moving into. 

And you’re really settling in a larger umbrella view of calling, aren’t you? That calling is not so much yes or no to this particular decision. Is it a result of the way that I should view calling? Am I thinking that through correctly? Right. And again, I think we so often look for signs. We look for things that can kind of fit into what we want to hear instead of keeping that open hand to what does God want us to hear. 

So, we get very assignment focused. We get very specific focused instead of stepping back and continuing to keep that 30,000-foot view as we explore lives. Let’s not compartmentalize. Is that a good word? Yeah. We don’t have just our work life over here. We don’t have our church life here and our family life here. 

It should all be interwoven when we consider our calling. Now, given that, if somebody were to come to you and say, I feel called to the mission field. Are you looking for a burning bush experience to sanction a person’s calling? No. I’ll maybe say it this way. I do not think that a person who has a burning bush is any more called than the person who does not. 

I do think that God speaks to each of us differently, and again, I think we try to go back too often to a burning bush and we need like all of these signs and to open up to these specific verses or things like that. And God can absolutely work through that. I’ve heard so many stories about that, but I don’t want that to be someone’s expectation that I have to have X, Y, and Z. 

And I think that provides a great deal of hope and a great deal of challenge, a challenge to my faith, because if I’ll be quite honest, Amber, sometimes not having the burning bush is a great excuse not to do anything, you know, after all, I haven’t had a burning bush. So that’s the crutch. But this frees us to pursue God’s calling and to walk in step with his calling after the pattern of Jesus, just out of the fabric of who we are in him as opposed to getting some sign. Absolutely. So, the last one has to do with community, if I recall. Yeah, just that calling is oftentimes confirmed through community. And so, what I mean by that is that as we make decisions, sometimes we almost view these decisions as so private that we have to be isolated and just keep this all to ourselves sorting through this big decision or considering missionary service or life changing thing, whatever it may be. 

And the reality is that the Lord has given us the church for a reason. And one of those reasons, I would say, is just for that accountability and stretching and encouragement and also being able to see different lenses than we are able to. And so, we really need to use them for counsel as we are exploring different decisions in our life. 

A lot of times when we think of calling, it is a very individualistic mentality, isn’t it? I’m working out in the privacy of my own heart, whether I should do such and such. And you’re really exploding that to say, this is not about you as much as this is about Christ and about others. And so, allowing others to speak into it there’s wisdom in that. 

Is that what I hear? Yeah, and so let me give you an example. For HarvestCall sending, we really look at not only a person’s individual calling or their sense of calling, again, that they are supposed to go to the mission field, but we also look, does their local church confirm that? And do we as HarvestCall confirm that for that person or that family. And then also does the ministry where they would be sent confirm that. And so, you have this group working together of local church and HarvestCall and the ministry that they’d be serving in coming alongside so that there is again that accountability and safety. 

You know what, even as you share all of that, that really is a healthy place, isn’t it to work in a mission whereby, that calling has been confirmed in these other places? Because I’m guessing when the times are trying, don’t we all question calling? Did I get this right? And, if it’s completely individualistic, then we have that alone to sort through, don’t we? 

And those hard times, if you can look back and say, actually, this wasn’t just an individual decision, this was collective. And people that I trusted also speaking into this, it’s huge in being able to make sense of difficult times that come along. What would you say to a person that says, boy, I really feel God is telling me this, and yet this community is not supporting that, or it’s not resonating that calling with my community? 

Yeah, one of the first things that would come to mind, Matt, would just be, well, is that community saying, no, never, or is that community saying pause and maybe this isn’t the time because I think those things are very different. And yet sometimes we hear them the same. We hear things like, oh my goodness, they don’t support me. 

It just sets us down this path of trying to justify and trying to almost go on defense of how we got there. And it can lead to a lot of hurt. I think you’re absolutely right, Amber. It can lead to a lot of hurt, and it has led to hurt in many. But I’d like to give anecdotal stories of individuals that I knew that this happened to, and the way they processed their no was to take that issue into prayer. 

And then decades later, God exploded that heart through the lives of others, not them, through the lives of others in such a powerful, meaningful way. So, my question is, do you think sometimes God uses a no, whether it was right or wrong, to put issues into the pressure cooker of prayer? Absolutely. You have to look at it that way, and I think there is so much evidence of that, that we serve a redeeming God who redeems whether we were right or wrong in that situation. 

But again, it’s how we take that, how we take that no, and what we do with it moving forward. Again, it sounds like those individuals took it the right way, and they took it back to where it belonged. They took it back to prayer. And there’s so much that God could do with that heart and that openness of taking it back to him. 

Really, where they took it back to is they took it back to the caller. They understood that the calling was coming from God. So, they took it back to him. I think there’s something powerful there too, Amber. If the calling is within us, which sometimes it might be, then we can sit offended. They took it back to the caller. 

That’s a great point. And so, this calling that we have with God is worked out with him. He’s very privy to it. He’s very aware of it. And as you’ve mentioned, he has a purpose in the process, and has a lot to do with our being. And it’s after the pattern of Christ, which I really like. Amber, I know one of the things that you use to help people steer through this is through a get together you call Learn and Discern. 

Say a few things about Learn and Discern. So, Learn and Discern was originally started a few years back, and we’ve started meeting again here this past summer, and it is an opportunity. It’s a group that meets every two to three weeks, and it’s just a small group, and it allows brothers and sisters from all over the country to just share wrestling that they’re having about calling, questions that they’re asking about missions and ministry, whether that’s reaching out to your neighbor next door, whether that is missions, even something I should be getting involved in, whether that’s feeling called to go to this place far away. And so, we’re able to kind of challenge each other and continue to sort through those callings in community in a way that feels really healthy and again, allows some privacy for those discussions. 

I really like that. How can people contact you if they’re interested? So yeah, if anyone is interested, please reach out to me and I can explain more or get you set up with one of our groups. And my email is just [email protected]. And that’s probably the best way to reach out. Amber, thanks for sharing this. 

Thanks for speaking into this real issue that we all think through. And you’ve expanded that view, maybe redefined it a little bit, gave us some fresh nuances. I love the five recommendations to think about this. I think when it comes to calling, just one parting thought I would have is that we put the weight in the right places, meaning that we put the weight back on what we were talking about. 

We put the weight on community and who are we coming through it and don’t overemphasize or get so hung up on the end result. I know that’s easier said than done, but it can make all the difference in the world when you’re walking through this and here’s why it makes all the difference in the world, Amber, is because it all comes down to that final outcome. 

If I evaluate the whole thing on a yes or no answer, when after the pattern of Jesus, I am called, apart from that, yes or no answer, I offer myself to the world as one who has been called with ascending purpose in Christ. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. To our listeners, I hope that you’ve been as blessed as I have to just be thoughtful a moment about what we mean by calling and how we think about calling, how we respond to the calling of God. You’ve heard Amber’s contact there in the show notes. I’ll have her contact as well, and you can reach out to her if you want to learn more about HarvestCall and their opportunities. So, thank you, each one, for being here. Goodbye.