Intentional Family - Tough Calling Part II

As I left for the final day of the conference, my husband shared his desire to go back into full time ministry, but didn't see how it was possible.  I was walking out the door and didn’t have time to unpack this complex statement, but his words didn’t sit well with me. Prior to getting married I was in full time ministry and living a life of great adventure. I got to take college students all over the world on mission trips, I got to see the hand of God move in mighty ways, I got to experience radical faith in a way that kept me up at night. I loved my life. A quieter life as a wife and mother has been a bit challenging at times, I won’t lie. When I first met my husband, he was an associate pastor of a church and he too had a life filled with God’s amazing work. He left full time ministry to pursue a calling to law enforcement and over the past few years he has longed to return to ministry but doesn’t know where or how. On this morning, when he honestly shared his fears about the future, I was so sad because I strongly feel that if we are following God’s calling, He will provide for our needs.  I had no idea what was yet coming that morning in a lecture from Bill Hybels called “Tough Callings.”
“Are you willing to take a tough calling?” Bill asked. He talked about searching for the new president of Compassion International a few years back and knew that the caliber of person they needed most likely would not be willing to take a huge salary cut, fly coach around the world to visit the poor and oppressed, and step down. But they found a man who was willing to take a tough calling and give up his private jet and came to serve as the Compassion president.

Mama Maggie Gobran spoke – a modern day Mother Teressa – who serves the most severely poor people of Egypt. “If you want to be a hero – do what God wants you to do.” Wow, what a challenge.

Bill talked about Jeremiah’s tough calling to be God’s mouth piece and deliver tough words to the nations and be beaten and despised for it. He again asked, “Are you willing to take a tough calling?”

Here’s what I wrote through my tears that morning:
Honestly, it would be, perhaps not “easy,” but a welcomed calling to go to another country and serve those in need. To do something radical, something risky, something life changing that gets my heart racing and daily forces me to my knees in complete dependency on God. I salivate at the thought and dream of a life of complete abandonment. My tough calling is to live where I’m at and serve my family. Sometimes it’s tough to support and honor my husband who has a different calling right now. Sometimes it’s so hard to submit to his leadership when I’d go in a heart beat.
I realized that for me, my tough calling is to trust and obey right now, where I’m at. My tough calling is to be the wife God has called me to be, even if that means setting some of my dreams and passions aside and trust that God knows far more than I do. My tough calling is to submit.

Marriage is a tough calling. No matter how much you love your spouse, no matter how compatible you are, no matter how committed you are – marriage is a tough calling. I think what makes it so tough is that the enemy knows the power of marriage and how it radically affects the whole family and he wants for nothing more than to see it crumble. We must stand firm in our marriages and pray for protection over our marriages.

CHALLENGE: Take some time this week to get alone and get honest – what is the toughest thing about being married for you? Pray and ask God to protect you most in that area from attack. Pray that God would strengthen you and give you a heart to be the wife that God has called you to be.

FLASHBACK QUESTION: How is God blessing you in the toughest areas of being a mother?

*Next Monday Intentional Family will kick-off a 5 week series on Intentional Family Traditions. I hope you’ll share some of your favorite family traditions for the holidays!