Today, in a hotel, I was watching a game of the Shanghai Master Snooker Championship. What is that? It’s a billiard game. You know, a game with little colored balls on a green pool table that you tap around with a stick into little pockets built into the edges? Most Americans have never heard of snooker, but it’s sort of like American 8-ball pool, except with a much larger table and a different set of rules.
As I was watching it, I asked myself: “What would it be like to be a professional snooker player?” I honestly can’t imagine.
I am much more comfortable with what I’m currently doing with my time: sharing the good news about Jesus with lost people both in word and deed, and training others to do the same using music, stories, acts of mercy, …
What is your calling? The fancier word for that is vocation.
First, you have to decide WHO is doing the calling. Even many who say that believe in God don’t seem to act like it is GOD, but it just makes sense for us to ask our Creator: “What do you want? What have you made me for?”
Ultimately, I think people would tend to think of what a missionary does as more “valuable”, more “pleasing” to God than a professional snooker player. I disagree. I think that if you are good at snooker and you are doing your best to honor God, and that is what God wants you to do right then, that it would be a sin to drop that and go to Africa, …
“Clothes Maketh The Man.” … That’s what Shakespeare said. There is a degree of truth to this … clothes do have an effect, but in the big picture, … not so much.
“…man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
(NIV) (1 Samuel 16:7b)
I think many times we tend to see “what we do to earn an income” as a more important question than God does. What I do to earn a living is NOT who I am. It doesn’t define me.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters ” (NIV) (Colossians 3:23)
What God really cares about is not so much how we earn a living, but the heart behind it. Our motivation. Are you doing what you do to the glory of God? Is it an obedient response of gratitude? Is it clear that God is living in and through you? What does God see?
If you are being faithful and ______________________ in order honor God and to provide for you and your family, with a thankful heart, … I believe God is pleased. You can insert “picking up garbage” … or … “preaching and discipling” … or … “making music videos” … or … “playing professional snooker” … God sees. God knows. In the end, you will not answer to me, or to your friends, family, society at large, but to God.
Not all of us can be astronauts or professional snooker players. Thankfully, the ONE thing God requires in order to become his child, … and this is available to ALL of us … is TRUST.
If you have humbled yourself, acknowledging your sin and inability to save yourself and instead put your TRUST in the person of Jesus and His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave … your heart, your core identity has been changed!
“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (NLT) (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Now you simply have the opportunity to allow God to work in and through you, bringing hope to a dark world, by cleaning up trash or serving food or whatever it is God has called you to do.
Who has God called you to be? Are you living out your calling?
