When I was twenty years old, I was a year and a half removed from partying very hard for four and a half years. I had been in a few relationships with girls who had cheated on me. I had almost failed out of High School, then failed out of college, then left the state to go to a junior college on academic probation, recovered my GPA, and transferred back to Kent, Ohio to go to Kent State University. I was starting to mend many of the broken pieces of my life, but was still majorly unsure of my future and purpose on earth.
I read through the gospels and the New Testament for the first time in a liberal religion studies class, and for the first time I realized that there was a God who created me, loved me, and sent His Son Jesus to die to forgive me of all of my sins, past, present and future. From that point forward I knew I needed to serve Him with everything I was and immediately wanted to be in ministry for the rest of my life. I had no idea what I was getting into, but was always an extreme, intense person. That call into ministry from that period in my life where Christ fully transformed me never left me, despite the many bumps in the road and mistakes I’ve made since then!
My story isn’t the same as everyone’s story. Some may be called by God to start a business, start and love a family, work in the nonprofit realm, work in corporate America, or leave their native country to go to the mission field.
But I do know that everyone who is truly a disciple of Jesus experiences the power of a calling.
And I would take it further to say that those of us who have been called into being disciples of Jesus Christ also experience a fine tuning of that calling.
