Answering The Call

I am thankful for people like Paul and Silas; Peter; Jeremiah; Mary; Barnabas; Constance; Martin Luther; Lydia the seller of purple; John Calvin; John Wesley; Martin Luther King; Charlie Bradford; Billie Graham; Rev. Sue White; Bishop Joel Martinez who have heard God’s call upon their lives; saw his vision; and then gone forth and responded to it. And because of their willingness to answer God’s call, the Word of God has been proclaimed, and lives have been changed. In fact isn’t that what God told Jeremiah? Don’t worry about the words! I will give you the words! Proclaim my word, and the Spirit of God will take care of the rest.

Former Giants pitcher Dave Drevecky was to speak one night at a church. Dave really didn’t feel like speaking, but he had agreed and so he went anyways. Dave was still struggling over the loss of his pitching arm to cancer. "I felt lousy that night" he recalled. "I felt so unworthy to be standing there in front of all those people who looked up to me. If they knew what I was really like; the thoughts that went through my head, the words that had come from my mouth; they would get up and walk right out that door."

About five months later Dave was on a radio call-in show and a woman phoned in. She explained that her husband was at that Church that night, and he had come forward during the altar call. He was a thirty-four year old welder whose life had been a mess. That night he gave his life to Christ. She told Dave that in the next few months they began putting their marriage back together. He had been having an affair with another woman, but something in Dave’s story called him from that life, and he asked Christ into his heart and changed his life. The woman said that everyone around him noticed the change - people in the neighborhood; people at work. But no one noticed more than his wife.

She explained that tragically he had been killed at work when a truck struck him. But the wife said to Dave, "Those weeks he walked with Christ were the best weeks of our marriage, and the best weeks of my husband’s life." And she thanked Dave for being there that night and telling others about Jesus. Dave responded, "And to think, I didn’t want to go, and almost didn’t".

The bottom line is, faithful disciples answer God’s call. And when you do, God will use you, and you can rest assured that lives will be changed, and people will be saved." Paul may have had dis-figuring looks, and by his own account may not have been a persuasive speaker. Jeremiah too young! Moses stuttered and had killed a man. And we won’t even get into my faults and foibles....don’t go there... but when someone like Jeremiah is willing to be willing. Willing to be willing to be used by God... the grace of God we be overwhelming, when you simply answer God’s call upon your life.

How will you answer God’s call?.....