Summoned: Stepping Up to Live and Lead With JesusSample

Wake-up Call

The words call and calling come to us from the Latin word vocatio, from which we get our English word vocation. A vocation is a calling, a recognition that someone (God) or something (a cause, a particular group of people, an opportunity to seize or problem to solve) has taken hold of us and won’t let go. It’s a summons, if you will. The prophet Jeremiah was called to prophesy to Judah and her surrounding nations, and he described his call as a “fire shut up in my bones” (Jeremiah 20:9).

A calling seizes you, takes hold of you. You don’t invent it. It’s not the same as thinking logically through a career path. You don’t make it up; it comes to you. You might come to understand it as something that’s been present in your life for a long time, but even then it’s something from outside yourself. As I’m describing it here, it comes from God.

Calling is not just for those who believe they’re summoned to church work. My friend James feels called to address the global HIV/ AIDS crisis. Nehemiah was called to lead a massive public works project. Esther was called to help avert wide- spread genocide.

Have you heard God’s call?