Calling... it's a concept that I've not been able to define very clearly. Even after choosing to live cross culturally for 24 years, I feel sort of vague about what the word means.

I think this is because "calling" can come in such a beautiful array of shapes and shades. I know people who can confidently say, "I was called to (some specific spot or people group) when I was 10 years old." Others say, "I received the call during my first year in college," or "...at Urbana," or whatever.

But that's not really how it was for me.

I was raised by parents who were in full-time ministry. For 8 of my growing up years we lived in Europe, splitting time, 4 years and 4 years, between Sweden and England. It was great. I loved each place.

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Lately, I have had a very complaining attitude about things going on in my life, at my church, etc. But today, I was reminded that I need to gain some perspective. Here is the story:

It actually begins a couple days ago. A man named Joseph called me on the phone saying that he needed some gas money. To give you some background, one of the things I do at my church is work with people who are in need, and help to meet those needs or connect them with those who can. So picking up the phone and beginning the conversation is where the often difficult task of discernment of the true need begins.

Joseph jumps into a story that in short involves long lost friendship, recent re-connection, and the discovery that his long lost friend, Christine, now has Crone’s Disease, which has not only wreaked havoc on her body, but also contributed to her husband leaving, and most of her friends abandoning her as dead.

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I recently came across a remarkable ancient Hebrew prayer which begins with an astoundingly crass complaint: "Yahweh, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me."

Apparently, the writer blamed God for his lack of popularity. But who could be so arrogant as to slander a blameless and holy God for his own laughably insignificant troubles? The audacity! Who, exactly, did this ninny think he was dealing with? If he possessed a passable understanding of the Biblical God, he would never dare to utter such faithless words.

The accusation is so childish, so crude, that I was tempted to slam the text in disgust. Except that the text is the Bible and the whiner is Jeremiah... the prophet... who is in heaven with God. And as these things tend to go, the Bible slams those who are enticed to slam it.

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I often tell my children an apocryphal story about Nicholas of Myra's courageous stand against blasphemy at the Council of Nicea in 325.

Here's how it goes:

"A long time ago--just a few hundred years after Jesus rose from the dead--all the Christian pastors went to a city called Nicea to talk about some important things. There were a lot of great men there; many of them had been beaten up for telling people about Jesus and some had almost died. Still, none of them ever gave up believing in Jesus because they loved him so much... and the people loved them too.

"One of the great men at Nicea was Athanasius. You know about Athanasius because we named your baby brother after him. Another great man at Nicea was Nicholas of Myra. Today, everybody calls him Santa Claus. Nicholas was good--he was kind to the people, he gave money to the poor, and he told them the truth about God. But there was also a very bad man at Nicea named Arius who told a lot of lies. You've heard of Arius because we named the iguana that used to live in our courtyard after him. (Remember how we would yell, "Get out of here, Arius, you ugly lizard!" as it crawled along our fence?)

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Pop-theology is awash with conspiracy theories. We're breathlessly informed that the church (that omnipotent, crafty monolith) suppresses evidence that Jesus developed his philosophy in an Indian ashram, or that he survived his crucifixion, or that he fathered a child with Mary Magdalene, or that religious bullies hijacked his original message of peace and equality in order to illicitly place his imprimatur upon their own strange metaphysical theories.

On his blog, Five Sacred Crossings, Craig Hazen aptly calls conspiracy theories "the fruit of the soul's dark regions" and notes that such nincompoopery tends to emerge from the fertile ground of blind contempt. Once it has thoroughly poisoned a soul, this emotional vice creates dark regions from which bombastic conjectures grow like diseased fruit. That's why, to use his example, those who obsessively villanize George Bush find it easy to believe almost any outlandish rumor about his nefarious scheming. After all, if you're going to beat a dog, does it really matter what kind of stick you use?

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I would be a rich man if I had a dollar for every time I heard or read an emerging leader say something like: “Apologetics don’t matter anymore in our postmodern world,” “Young people no longer need evidence; it’s about relationships.” Are these claims true? Have we moved into a new era in which apologetics are no longer needed? From my perspective, nothing could be further from the truth.

This past weekend I spoke at the Big Dig youth apologetics conference by Focus on the Family to over 2,200 youth. Speakers included Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Ryan Dobson, Mark Mittelberg, and Alex McFarland. I was blown away at how engaged, interested, and attentive the students were. Many of them took notes and hung around book tables to ask questions. There is clearly a movement of young people who desire to know not only what they believe by why. They want to dig deeper.

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In speaking about Christ's call to the disciples to follow Him, Diedrich Bonhoeffer says this about the calling of Matthew (or Levi).

"Had Levi stayed at his post, Jesus might have been his present help in trouble, but not the Lord of his whole life. In other words, Levi would have never learnt to believe."

As Christians we are called the same way, are we not? Like Peter, John, Matthew, and the other disciples we are called to leave our nets, our boats, our pasts, and our selfish-ambitions and to walk with Jesus.

To those who've been brought up in the Church, you may be numb from this concept's familiarity. "Yes, yes I know. I must deny myself, pick up my cross, and follow Jesus", you may say as your mind gets lost in the seemingly dramatic nature of His command.

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summer backpacking

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I wrote the following short essay for Acquire the Fire teen magazine. What’s true for a fifteen year old is true for the rest of us, so take a look.

 

The beach is waiting. Jeweled flip-flops, Coppertone, hermit crabs, and the latest celebrity gossip mag. A perfect checklist for a summer afternoon?

No way. You should pitch that last one.

Deep inside a girl’s genes lies a weird mutation in her DNA—the desire to be informed about the world’s most critical matters:  shoe fashions, engagement ring dimensions, and celebrity hook-ups. It’s comical, really. We take our lives (which seem flat and uninteresting by comparison) and measure them against the over-inflated and ridiculous lives of people we don’t know and don’t understand. 

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