Vocation can be costly.
Although what follows is partly for people who have, or think they might have, a ‘call’ from God to be a man or woman minister or priest in the Christian Church, you can be called to literally any job.
Vocation is not confined to clergy persons. You can be called by God to all sorts of part-time, or full-time paid or unpaid work.
What matters is saying to God, “Please show me what you want me to do”. This often includes talking to people who are already doing the job you are interested in, such as vicars.
Here goes then. It is becoming increasingly common for jobs for vicars and others to be advertised in the church press.
The danger here is that an ordained man or woman or stipendiary lay worker may see an advert and think, “H’ mm, wouldn’t mind living there; good area for schools for the kids too; might get some fishing in on the reservoir: church life sounds my sort too; four-bedroomed house is just what we want for our growing family. Think I’ll write off for an information sheet".
The trouble is that this can sometimes mean that the human person is going to make the decision based on personal needs and likes; and only afterwards will the good Lord be asked to bless a ministry there.
But isn't this the “wrong way round”; for in a vocation to a fresh job it should be God who calls and we who respond.
Of course, you can get the balance right even via an advertisement! If a minister has been praying to be shown the way forward and after doing that he sees an advertisement which might be the answer, he (or she) can then “enquire of the Lord” if that advertised job is what God wants.
What, I firmly believe, we have no right whatever to do, is to tell God what kind of job we want.
Of course, we have to be practical and sensible and down—to— earth, but we must keep in mind that the wisdom of God is not the same as the wisdom of man.
When I had realised that there was a call from God to go to the most remote island in the world,(please see my blog about God talking in the loo), my wife and I had to think carefully about our children’s health.
Migraine, hay-fever, eczema, asthma are inherited traits which can be serious problems. Gillian had infantile eczema, Michael had asthma and Elizabeth had had one attack of asthma only, so we took them to the specialist who had already prescribed for them, (including saying, “No cheese, no egg—white, no chocolate in any form”), and we asked him what he thought about our proposed move?
What sort of a climate was it? he asked. We told him: rapid changes in weather, high humidity; rainfall like the wetter parts of the Lake District; never quite down to freezing, seldom above 70°F.
“If you proposed a dry area like near the Red Sea, it would be alright’, he said; “But to a climate like Tristan da Cunha? No!”
I think he saw our faces fall.
“Well, you could risk it if you want to” he admitted.
So we took a supply of elixir benedryl for Gillian, and we knew from experience how to use a steam kettle to help Michael’s attacks.
Have you ever heard an asthma attack? It is a sound you could not miss!
We had not been on Tristan long when we were awakened by the sound of the worst asthma attack we had heard! We both jumped out of bed, (it was the middle of the night), and hurried into the children’s bedrooms.
First to Michael; no wheezing, just the quiet breathing of a healthy boy.
Then to Gillian and Elizabeth; both sleeping soundly!
We stood still, puzzled but listening. Suddenly this awful wheeze echoed through the bedroom! Earth-shattering!
It seemed to come from outside the window! It was hard to see out through the fly-screen, but there he was - the author of the asthmatic wheeze — an old donkey!
We pursued a toughening up policy with the children. They wore the minimum number of clothes needed for warmth; they bathed at night in water made hot by our wood-fired geyser.
This was above one end of the bath. You fed sticks into it, it roared like a steam train going up an incline, and water bubbled and steamed out of the pipe hanging over the bath. (We did have piped cold water.)
Every morning each member of the family was expected to have a cold sponge-down.
The lovely thing was that Michael and Elizabeth have never had another asthma attack since we left England in 1956.
This was one of the incidents in our lives which led us to the belief that if God calls and we say “yes”, He also sees us through the circumstances and environment of the fulfilment of that call or vocation. This “wisdom” is often different from the wisdom of man.
What I have just described refers to a “guidance experience” within the context of a vocation to the priesthood of the Church.
As I have said before, “having a vocation” is NOT a matter of deciding to do something and then asking for God’s help.
Vocation is God calling or pointing the way and the person responding. In any true vocation the person called is first strongly aware of his or her own insufficiency. “Surely not me”, one says.
But once you have accepted the call and said “Yes” to God, it then becomes His responsibility.
He called; you responded affirmatively. You must now rely on Him and His strength and grow in the certainty that, come what may, He will stay with you and see you through. First comes the decision — “Here am I, send me” — then follow the details of what, where and how.
The secret is to use the circumstances of life to fulfil the vocation ( - what the spiritual writer De Caussade called “Abandonment to Divine Providence”).
In my own case I had to “abandon myself” to the historical event of the outbreak of war and to the personal facts of my own inabilities.
Looking back, I can see how God said, “I will take you and help you become a parish priest. You need more experience of life and more self-confidence. Use your year in Blackburn and your military training to do this!”
All this sort of thing ties up with what we mean by ‘guidance”. Guidance, (as I said), is finding out what God wants you do to, where you are to do it and how you are to start doing it.
I am much troubled by the way some women and men — including some Bishops, Archdeacons and senior clergy, accept the idea of God guiding a person to be ordained, but there the “guidance procedure” ends.
Surely vocation or guidance must continue through life and apply to all decision-making.
It goes without saying that it cannot be achieved without prayer.
to be continued
