Calling

As a child I didn't play with dolls really at all. I played with stuffed animals a lot, but not dolls. Maybe that's why I don't feel called to be a mother of humans, why I'm satisfied being a mother to two dogs.

But the main way I spent my time as a child was inventing things, creating business, and playing "office." I'd take old manila folders from my mom and organize and reorganize and office for myself. I'd create word puzzles (not just fill them in, but make my own up) and newsletters. I created a database of my books and make it into a library. I had, among others: a detective business, a bracelet business, a yard care business, even a business where I made fun crafty things out of the edges of printer paper (back in the day when they had those holey edges). I loved the idea of being a professional business woman.

Nothing has really changed, except the kind of paper we put in our printers. Oh sure, my dreams have gotten more refined, but the little girl inside of me still has that hunger to organize and reorganize, to be successful, to be professional.

Every now and then I need to pause to consider my motive. Do I dream the things I dream because I want to glorify God, to change the world for him? Or do I dream those things because I want to be successful and known?

Tonight I read Isaiah 6, where he's called by God. When he encounters God, he says he's not worthy because his lips are unclean. An angel then flies over and puts a hot coal on his mouth and says, "There. Now you've got clean lips." (My paraphrase.) I was really impressed by his humility. And I was struck by the fact that preparing to do great things for God wasn't cushy, even from the beginning. No, he had to be burned on the lips with a hot coal.

Then I get to 2 Corinthians 11, Paul's resume. It starts off OK...he's a Hebrew, a descendant of Abraham, etc. But then it gets into all the ways he's struggled, how many times he's come close to death and been imprisoned, how many times he's been beaten.

These two passages were definitely a check in my motivation. Serving God in my life may be very painful. It may not always - or ever - come in the package I dreamed of as a child. But if my motivation is really about glorifying God, it will always be fruitful in the end.