“Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”
Parker Palmer
I used to run, a lot. In fact my running app reminds me every time I now finish my two miles at a turtle pace just how far, how fast, and how long I used to run. I still run just not nearly as far, not nearly as fast, and not nearly as long. Yet, I still run.
Somewhere in the middle of the miles I would always ask myself this question: “why am I running? Am I running to or from something?”
To answer that question honestly was never going to take place because it would mean saying to myself what I already knew to be true. So with my sneakers laced up and a knot tied around my heart, I would run and run. In my mind and in my heart knowing full well what I was always running from.
Yesterday, like a runner hit by a toddler on a tricycle, I was tripped up by this quote from Parker Palmer in my class at Lee University. In the quiet noise of my life, the patter of feet hitting pavement, I always heard the whisper of the calling. Despite my best efforts to outrun the voice of God, wherever I was he was already there.
In college, when I decided to run away he was there. In my thirties, when I tried to outrun him, he was there. And now, with slower pace and fatigued feet, he is there. The words of Parker Palmer coupled with the results of strengths test simply Windexed the mirror of life to reflect the very things I already know about myself. Run as I may, the calling will always be there.
In the past few years, I feel as if I have tried to switch sports on the Lord. Once I found that I could not outrun the gentle voice that calls me back to ministry, I left the distance running for Greco Roman Wrestling. In our tussle, like Jacob in Genesis, I try to wrestle out a blessing that is not mine. It left me grappling and longing for blessings and callings I was never meant to carry. As Jesus pins me back to the very nature of who I am, I relent and tap out with the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Here I am.”
Here I am done running from the calling. Here I am done running from the gifts of God. Here I am done trying to straggle hold those gifts into a hold of something other than what you have called me to use them for. Here I am.
Callings are like haunting. The familiar whispers will catch you off guard. It will follow you down to the places you think you want to go. When you turn, it will be there staring you back in the face. Run and wrestle as you wish, the calling remains. Some of us spend our entire lives running and wrestling and never resting.
Here I am learning to rest in the call. For he who called me, will equip me. He who equips me will send me. Here I am.
