calling

I went to sleep and woke up this morning with thoughts about the young people I'm seeing and meeting in and near the Walnut Neighborhood. I couldn't get D. out of my mind- an 8 year old little friend who felt so good about contributing to his neighborhood in a positive way yesterday. I couldn't get Mrs. H. out of my mind as she signed the "save the park" petition and said, "They keep taking things away from our young people, but nobody's replacing those things with anything FOR them." I was reminded this morning of a young 11 year old boy in the neighborhood last summer who stayed after Triangle Park night, and standing there with his bike, asked us to pray for him because a friend's life had been lost just weeks before in a shooting. As we prayed, he cried, and as we talked, the look in his eyes said, "Please let there be some other option for me." Another friend in the neighborhood is a pastor. She's been dealing with several kids who are suicidal, and she's overcome with the hopelessness she's encountering.

I've been thoughtful these days about God's calling on our lives as followers of Jesus. My friend, Heidi, went to Germany this month and she blogged about her trip to Dachau Concentration Camp in Munich. She took a picture of the gate and wrote "it was strange to think that people lived right here next to the camp, going on with everyday life while all of the horror went on beyond the gates… and I’m afraid I would have been one of them if I were in their shoes." I wonder how much of that is true of my life right now. How much I'm going on with everyday life while pain and oppression and evils are going on next door to me.

We talk about how God calls us each uniquely as followers of Jesus. I agree with that, but I'm wondering why it seems in some of the areas of greatest darkness and injustice in our country and world, it seems so few followers are called? And I'm wondering if I was not a Christian and was trying to understand what Christians are called to, what would I find as I went church to church and explored people's lives to get an understanding of calling? And what would I conclude about their Christ as I explored their lives and callings? I think I might conclude that their Christ has written off and cares not for the most vulnerable and marginalized and oppressed due to the statistical findings of what the majority of Christians spend their time, talents, and treasure doing and not doing. (I am included in these statistics.) This, however, seems to conflict with the Christ I read about in the Bible.

The question I am asking Jesus this morning is "How now, then shall I live as your follower in this life that is but a fleeting moment, a vapor? Command my destiny, order my steps, let me heed your calling and not make up my own and call it yours upon my life."