Following the call

I decided that I really got a great deal out of posting during lent and want to try to continue posting regularly. So I'm going to try to post weekly thoughts on the lectionary.

Today's verses: 

Acts 9: 1-20: The conversion of Saul

Psalm 30: You have turned my mourning into dancing

Rev 5:11-14: Praising the lamb

John 21:1-19: Risen Christ eating fish with disciples, calling Peter

I hear the Spirit whisper to me in these verses -- "It's going to be ok." 

I have been a bit anxious about life. What am I doing? What is going to happen with our business? How should I be spending my days? Life is unclear and yet, somehow, I am convicted that there is a call to be who I am, where I am right now. I have had moments like Saul. Blinded on the side of the road. Invited to change course. I have had moments like Ananias. Asked to reach out into danger and trust God's plan. Reminded to cast off my own opinions about who someone is and remember that God's plans are bigger than our personalities. I've had moments like Peter. Conversing intimately with God. In fact, my favorite sentence out of all the readings today was this one...

"When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea." 

It reminds me of Forest Gump when he was on his ship and he saw that Captain Dan had come to be his first mate, he jumped off the boat, fully dressed to greet his friend. 

These verses remind me that call isn't just a duty we perform or  the unraveling of some master plan that God has for humanity where we have some bit part that we need to accomplish. God's call is bigger, wider and deeper. God's call is to jump off the boat and swim to him. To be so excited about what he is doing and what he wants to do together that we let go and abandon ourselves to grace.

Maybe that call together will be difficult. Maybe it will involve suffering. But the Psalmist reminds us that God is with us through the difficulties and so we will be upheld by grace.

I completely jumped off the boat when I fell in love with Ulrich and married him. Some days, when the weather is nice and I can't hold in my affection, I jump off the boat and completely waste my day hanging out with my two boys. I jumped off the boat and moved to Haiti with no where to live and no plans because I felt the call. As I get older and responsibility presses around me experience pushes me to be self-reliant. To be practical. To be rational. I am tempted to tell myself that love is for youth. That following the Spirit is too wild for responsible people... 

But, the call remains, to jump off the boat. To be in love with God and what God is doing. 

To trust and lean into the uncertainty.