Call of God

Today our pastor Dr Joy George shared a great message from John 21:1-15. The message was, God is able to provide the needs of people who serve Him.

But what caught my attention was much more from his side comments or background explanation to the passage.

FIRST CALLS
He taught us it is not that Peter magically followed Jesus at the first call. In fact, there were two calls before he responded.

In the first meeting, Jesus gave him a new name Peter (from Cephas, John 1:40-42).

Second call is mentioned in Matthew 4:18-20. This time Jesus addressed Peter by the name Jesus gave him. This time Jesus specifically asked him to follow him. And he did.

Third incident happened when at the direction of Jesus, Peter and his friends caught a huge number of fish (Matthew 5:4-10). By then Peter left everything he had and followed Jesus.

I remember a friend's comment: God's call for ministry is intricate. There are multiple fabrics that God worn. There is no one event.

SECOND CALLS
After multiple calls, Peter finally followed Jesus as long as Jesus lived physically. Then when Jesus died, though Jesus already appeared to them twice according to John 20, he goes "fishing".

Jesus asked for love from John 21:15 onward. He challenged for another level of following Jesus. Not by sight by but faith, just as we are called for. To perform miracles, not watch Jesus do. Accepting God's power and our inability.

MY REFLECTION
I realized God does not call just one time. If he calls just once, none of us would come to ministry. Because we are concerned for many things in life. Knowing that Jesus persistently calls everyone.

So sometimes, I am not very worried when I see people whom God is calling but haven't responded yet. God is persistent and he will not give up.

I also need to keep my eyes open for other levels of commitment and intimacy he requires from me and my family.

I really thank my pastor for sharing this powerful message this morning.

Devotional Life

Recently my boss gave a book called Mentoring Paradigms by Edmund Chan. This is written in devotional style and very simple to read, but had lots to think about.

In one of the chapters called Three Arenas of Mentoring he talks about Devotional, Domestic and Developmental Life. His comments of Devotional Life struck me.

He says “Quiet time does not automatically become easier as one grows older. In fact, it becomes harder. Why? Because one can browse through God’s Word quickly and pick up a thought or two without much meditation and intimacy with God.”

He goes to say that we can have routine and discipline of having devotions without the encounter and the wonder. We can read God’s Word and miss the God of the Bible.

Quite powerful warnings! I shared this to a colleague. He has an interesting reflection too. He told me, God allows those dry times in our devotional life with God, to remind us that we need to depend on Him even in this area.

I need to keep this in mind as I grow older, now mid in 30s. To be able to learn new perspectives from the Bible, I change versions of the Bible occasionally. While in Bible school I got so used to NIV that I just know most of the words. Later I used Revised Standard Version for over two years. Now I switched to New Living Translation.

My desire is that a child-like curiosity and interest will continue to grow in mind in my daily study of God’s Word.