Listening to God's Calling

After graduation, my dad came up to me and said he wanted me to listen to a message. He has quite often done this, and later comes to see what I thought of it. Recently he had gotten a hold of a talk given by Bill Hibels entitled “Relentless” which he gave at the Leadership Summit.

My dad came with the CD and said, “Here, listen to this and then tell me what you think.”

My reaction was, “Sure, I'll do that.” But little did I know that I would be awakened.

The talk was about Mother Teresa and her life, including her calling and her struggles. One of the things that caught my attention was that she said, "When I don't feel your presence, I will still be faithful and I will seek to love you as you have never been loved before." Wow. I was completely impressed by this. She blamed herself for not feeling God's presence as tangibly as she thought it would be, yet, she chose to love him as he had never been loved before. What does God want of me? I certainly sometimes feel he isn't there. And what do I do? I turn my back on him. I should choose to love him like he has never been loved before, even when I don't feel him. I want to follow him and do his will for me, but how can I if I don't choose to love?

Something else that caught my attention was that very early in her life: Mother Teresa made a series of powerful private pacts or vows, vows above and beyond what most of us would ever consider making. She didn’t make them with a spirit of compulsion; she made them with a spirit of love. In April of 1942, when she was just a school teacher, she made a vow to give God absolutely anything he might ask for. She put it this way, “To refuse him nothing”. “To refuse him nothing.” In other words she decided to say yes to God’s bidding every time, no matter what the request was, no matter the price it exacted from her life. “Yes God, yes God, now what was the question? 'Cause my answer is yes.” Along those lines she vowed that she would throw herself fully into whatever God asked her to do. She made this vow in the form of a question, “If God imparts himself fully to us, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves? How could we?” And in responding to promptings from God, her vow was to do his bidding without delay. This was big to her. She never wanted to tell God, “Yes, but tomorrow. Yes, but next month. Yes, but when I’m not as busy. Yes, but when I retire.” Moreover, she vowed to God that she would be faithful in what she always referred to as “the little practices”--the little practices of love, which meant treating every person who crossed her path with dignity and deference every day, every situation. I want to do that; I want to be the person who says yes to God even before he has told me what I need to do.

Another important point. At 36 years of age, after a dozen years of total obscurity, cart blanch (handing God a blank check) yieldedness, and private daily vows, Mother Theresa goes on a 400 mile train ride to a spiritual retreat and God taps her on the shoulder and gives her a mission. He plants a thought in her mind that she knows is directly from him. He plants a picture of her serving the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. She’s to live amongst the people that she’ll be serving, eat what they eat, dress as they dress, and do so quietly and faithfully the rest of her life. She was ecstatic that God would notice her. That God would whisper to her out of 6 billion people on the planet. When you have been praying for a decade, “Speak to me God; I’ll listen. Ask me to do something. I will refuse you nothing.” After you do that for a decade, and then God speaks, and God entrusts you with an assignment directly from his sovereign hand. Well, that's about as exhilarating as it gets. And Mother Theresa referred to that day and that train ride, the rest of her life, as “Inspiration Day.” “Inspiration Day,” September 10, 1946. And more importantly, the minute she got that prompting on that train, she said yes to that calling and it was yes without delay. That it would be hard, no problem; God had spoken. That she would be uprooted from all her friends and sisters and family, no problem; God had spoken. That her assignment would involve her working the rest of her life with diseased and dying people in one of the filthiest poorest places on the planet, no problem ;God has spoken. I will refuse him nothing. She said yes and intended to fulfill this without delay.

Now, you would think that when Mother Theresa finally got off from the 400 mile train ride, bursting with enthusiasm for her new calling in Calcutta, you would think that everything would unfold in a timely and uncomplicated way circumstantially. After all, this was God’s idea, God’s calling, she said “yes.” Shouldn’t all doors open automatically and all obstacles be miraculously removed from her path? This was not what happened to Mother Theresa. The next 16 months became a living nightmare for this Christ follower. She excitedly described her new calling to Father Venexum, her direct supervisor. But he is not too excited about her new calling. In fact, he tells her to slow down and back off and stick to her teaching job. This is intensely frustrating to Mother Teresa. Her heart is ablaze to move to Calcutta right away and start her work amongst the poor. But, what is she to do? She can’t get permission. Well, she decides to fight for her calling. She decides to meet with Father Venexum as many times as necessary. To vision cast him and to try to gently persuade him that this idea is from God and that she must do it. But it takes way too many meetings, which only adds to Mother Theresa’s frustration, and then to top it all off, some of the other nuns at the school where Mother Theresa is teaching started a rumor that Mother Theresa is having all these meeting with father Venexum because she has romantic feelings for him. Being misunderstood, being thought of in that way causes Mother Theresa almost insane amounts of anguish.. So here she is, knowing exactly what God wants her to do, excitedly having said yes to God, without delay. She wants to move ahead, but she can’t because of obstacles beyond her control.

This has happened to me, and many times I've let that dream or that vision die away because of the obstacles. But I should continue fighting and realize the vision God gave me. During this painful phase, penetrating questions are dealt with like, “Is this assignment really from God or did I just made it up myself? How do I know the difference between those two? What price I am actually willing to pay to fulfill this mission? How long am I willing to wait on God before he moves the obstacles aside? Might I need to adjust to his time table instead of thinking only of mine? Do I really believe that God can change the heart of someone in authority over me? Do I believe that he still has the power to part circumstantial waters that I’m neck-deep in right now? Will I lay down my life to carry out the vision that God is asking me to carry out?”

What happened with Mother Teresa? It took Mother Theresa four solid months of consistently meeting with father Venexum to finally convince him to let her take this new calling to the archbishop who had the final say about starting new ministries in that part of the world. Four months of just terrible frustration. And then, when she finally got permission to go to the archbishop, the archbishop said “No. Not now. Wait.” Mother Theresa was done waiting. She had already been intensely frustrated for how long it had taken to get past father Venexum, and now there is this additional immovable obstacle. She is at a true decision point now. Just go back to teaching and give it up or choose another alternative. And with the kind of relentlessness that I’ve rarely heard about, she embarks on a letter writing campaign to simply wear the archbishop down. Like the widow in Luke 18. She writes him all about the 400 mile train ride and how God gave her the calling. She wrote him all about “inspiration day” and gave him the date and the time. She writes about it with deep emotion. She passionately describes how awful the situation is in Calcutta. She tells him in one letter, “You don’t have to do anything for me. I am not asking for money, for administrative support, for staff, for housing. I am only asking you not to stand in the way.” Now, at the end of every letter, she expresses in no uncertain terms that she will humbly submit to his authority. In fact one time she wrote to the archbishop and she said, “Please forgive me for being so tiresome with my continual appeal, but I have to act this way. Souls of the poor are being lost.” This letter writing effort continued month after month after month. And then came her famous “let me go” letter. “I beg you, your grace, in the name of Jesus and for the love of Jesus, let me go. Delay no longer. Keep me not back. If the work be all human, it will die with me; if it be all his, it will live for ages to come. Souls are being lost in the meantime. Fear not for me! It does not matter what happens to me. Please let me go.”

What an incredible example. Before doing some research about Mother Teresa I thought that God chose her, she obeyed, and everything worked out. But it didn't. What is more incredible is her persistence and her will to keep going, and still to submit to her authority, not sneaking and doing it her way, but the way it is supposed to be done. Acts 20:24 says, “I no longer count my life as dear as to myself. It doesn’t matter what happens to me, only that I achieve the mission that God gave to me.” I want to be like that. I want to let his plan live in me. It does not matter what happens to me. As we know, Mother Teresa eventually was able to go and do her mission, but how long after she had her calling? Almost a year and a half from the train ride, a year and a half from “inspiration day,” she finally received permission to go. But it required a relentlessness of spirit and a Pit-bull determination on Mother Theresa’s part to see it trough.

Incredible—once we do what God has for us, we will bear fruit and grow immensely. Who would have thought that a “pint-sized” nun from nowhere could have had the impact that she did? No one. It was through God and his strength that she was able to do it. What does this mean? What does this have to do with me? I really need to listen to God and ACT, not just listen.

The talk finished, and of course my Dad came and asked me what I had learned. He had no idea that that talk had changed me, that it had awakened me from my slumber. I told him everything and he was happy to have been able to help me.

I decide to pray, and this is what I said, “God, I yield myself fully to you. I embrace your calling on my life. I will do your bidding without delay. I will refuse you nothing. I will endure all hardships. When I don’t feel your presence, I will still be faithful. I will seek to love you as you have never been loved before. Here am I; send me. What is my calling Lord? What do you want me to do, 'cause my answer is yes. Amen."

God answered, "I want you to get out of your comfort zone and draw closer to me."

Ok, I already said yes, now lead me and open the doors where you want me to go.