March 10: Are You "Called" Or "Driven"?

The imagery of Christ making His way through the bustling, pawing, and demanding crowds was one of peace, bearing, and purpose. CALLED by the Father to complete His task, Jesus never appeared to be in a hurry… yet always progressing toward His goal.

 

Because Jesus had a clear sense of His calling, He was able at age 33 — the night before the cross — to say to His Father, "I have finished the work You gave me to do." (John 17:4)

 

So it is to be with us. God has CALLED us to a work, be it in the context of the market place or behind a pulpit.

 

Unfortunately, many of us conduct our lives in a manner more indicative of a DRIVEN person :

	He's results-orientated.
	He's in constant pursuit of expansion.
	He's restless and very intense.
	He's very competitive.
	His people skills are underdeveloped.
	He's "too busy for integrity."
	He's preoccupied with symbols of achievement

By contrast, Isaiah paints a picture of work accomplished God's way:

 

"The work of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness will be quietness and confident trust forever." (Isaiah 32:17)

 

If your lifestyle and approach to work reflect a DRIVEN man as opposed to the CALLED person of Isaiah 32:17, perhaps it is time to take inventory.

—Facts of the Matter

"Man... is of few days, and full of trouble." Job 14:1

It may be of great service to us, before we fall asleep, to remember this mournful fact, for it may lead us to set loose by earthly things. There is nothing very pleasant in the recollection that we are not above the shafts of adversity, but it may humble us and prevent our boasting like the Psalmist in our morning's portion. "My mountain standeth firm: I shall never be moved." It may stay us from taking too deep root in this soil from which we are so soon to be transplanted into the heavenly garden. Let us recollect the frail tenure upon which we hold our temporal mercies. If we would remember that all the trees of earth are marked for the woodman's axe, we should not be so ready to build our nests in them. We should love, but we should love with the love which expects death, and which reckons upon separations. Our dear relations are but loaned to us, and the hour when we must return them to the lender's hand may be even at the door. The like is certainly true of our worldly goods. Do not riches take to themselves wings and fly away? Our health is equally precarious. Frail flowers of the field, we must not reckon upon blooming for ever. There is a time appointed for weakness and sickness, when we shall have to glorify God by suffering, and not by earnest activity. There is no single point in which we can hope to escape from the sharp arrows of affliction; out of our few days there is not one secure from sorrow. Man's life is a cask full of bitter wine; he who looks for joy in it had better seek for honey in an ocean of brine. Beloved reader, set not your affections upon things of earth: but seek those things which are above, for here the moth devoureth, and the thief breaketh through, but there all joys are perpetual and eternal. The path of trouble is the way home. Lord, make this thought a pillow for many a weary head!

—Morning and Evening

(Devotional by Spurgeon's Morning & Evening Devotional)