The Call of God in Your Life

By Dan Hughes, Certified Safety Professional (CSP), (Retired) President and CEO at Peak Safety Solutions, Inc.

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I came by this career field “by accident” and have been doing this for almost 40 years. I have been an athlete, a soldier, a Medical Professional, a heavy equipment operator, a firefighter, a rescue technician, and a hazardous materials guru.

I am a father, a grandfather, and now a great-grandfather. I have worked in the petrochemical arena, chemical processing, surface mining, warehousing, chemical weapons destruction, many Departments of Defense settings, construction, and general industry.

I have worked in natural disasters like Haiti in 2010 and the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 in the San Francisco Bay Area. I have worked in Japan, Okinawa, Italy, Germany, Libya, New Zealand, Antarctica, Alaska, Hawaii, and many of the lower 48 states.

Today, I want us to consider “our calling”.

Revelation 5:9 NKJV

9 And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; For you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,

I want us to focus today on what we have been called to and not so much on what we think we have been called to do.

Calling.

Now, I am not Inigo Montoya from the movie The Princess Bride

But I think I can say that we keep using this word, and I do not think it means what we think it means.

I didn’t understand my calling when I got saved except to share the love of Jesus Christ with everyone who would listen. I was in love with my Savior and wanted the whole world to know about it despite what it might cost me.

I didn’t have much before I got saved, so I didn’t think I had much to lose. And I convinced myself that I was destined for full-time ministry.

I was certain that a position at my church would open, and I would be promoted from full-time safety and health and emergency response to full-time ministry. And when that time came, I was sure I would be called upon to fill the vacancy –

Nope.

It didn’t happen, and my pastor said to me when I asked him about it, “You were never even considered.” I was devastated.

God is infinite, and our thinking is finite. God sees the line of time from beginning to end, and all we see today and yesterday is limited understanding and faulty memory.

It has been impressed upon me to share that God’s calling is the same for all of us. And we can miss that call from our business.

Psalm 139:14-16 NASB

14 I will give thanks to You, because I am awesomely and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You When I was made in secret and skillfully formed in the depths of the earth; 16 Your eyes have seen my formless substance; And in Your book were written All the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.

Isaiah 43:7 NIV

7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Jeremiah 15:16 NIV

16 When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, LORD God Almighty.

The Lord our God did not set us apart for ministry or works of our hands. The Lord our God set us apart to minister to Him, to set our sights and our love on Him alone, and to draw near to Him.

This is what we were created for: to be a companion to the Most High.

God created us for his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:13 NIV

For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

Daniel 1:18-20 NIV

18 At the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19 The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah; so they entered the king’s service. 20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.

Dedicated and consecrated to God alone, Daniel and his companions were found to be 10 times wiser than all the magicians and diviners of Babylon.

We are called to be holy and blameless

Ephesians 1:4 ESV

Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

Isaiah 45:18 ESV

For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the LORD, and there is no other.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 ESV

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Our whole duty as believers is to Love the Lord our God

Matthew 22:37-40 NKJV

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

We must be careful not to confuse our “calling” with our service to ministry, the church, community, or whatever else drives us. We must remember that we are called to love the Lord our God so that we are not unrecognized by Jesus.

Matthew 7:23 NIV

23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Revelation 3:16-17 KJV

16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Mark 1:15 KJV

15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Deuteronomy 10:12 ESV

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

Our call to action is simply to repent and return to our first love, the Lord our God. To lay down at the foot of the cross anything and everything that has taken our attention away from serving the Lord our God first.

We may have a ministry, a pastorate, or some other important title like business owner, CEO, or President. But these positions are not our calling.

Our calling is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and soul.

“Calling” does not mean what we think it means if we miss the mark and fail to draw nearer to our God.

Jesus wants all of us. When we leave it all at the foot of the cross, we need to leave it all: our work, our families, our business, and our busyness.

God forbid that we should do all for the entirety of our lives only to be cast out of his presence because he never knew us.

Among all the other things I have been, I have also been a lost drug addict, a lost drunkard, a lost philanderer, and a thief.

I have been an outcast living in my car, barely hanging onto a job. I have been looked down upon and shunned by family, friends, and colleagues.

I have been a failure in life.

But I was never forgotten or shunned by Jesus Christ. I was never too far gone. I was never to anything that was like the lost sheep. My Savior did not leave the 99 to come find me.

I am the prodigal son who returned to his father’s house to beg for a meal, but I found my Father running to greet me with open arms.

All I want to do is minister to my Father, his son Jesus, and do the will of the Holy Spirit. Wherever that takes me and whatever it costs.

And it will be my honor to bring glory to his name.

Our God is a Holy God who calls us each to holiness.

Leviticus 19:2

“Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

Leviticus 20:26

Thus, you are to be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine.

1 Peter 1:16

because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according to His mind described in Scripture.

It is the habit of agreeing with God's judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word.? ~J. C. Ryle

You can reach Dan at [email protected].

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