December 2021 Blog by Fr Stephen Nolan
BIG QUESTIONS #002 – Are you being Called?
Read Matthew 22.1-14 to get started …
Discovering a vocation in Christ can be very exciting. It can be a joyful affair, one in which God reveals his will for us, which can feel like an amazing life affirming moment, but it can also feel very scary.
Discerning, a path or a way forward in and amongst all those feelings can seem a little bit like eating a trifle with a fork. In one sense you know it is a delicious thing to eat but despite lots of enthusiasm nothing happens quickly and the potential for making a mess is considerable.
God calls us all to serve in a vocation. Discerning how and when God is calling you is a consequence of your own relationship with God, which is continually changing.
Having a faithful and disciplined prayer life is essential if we are to listen to God’s will for us and, critically, make space to hear God calling. This is where the process starts and ends.
Is God calling you?
The answer is YES, but to what? Perhaps through prayer and with God’s grace we can make time to discover this together.
At this time, as we reflect in the space of ordinary season, there couldn’t be a better time to consider our relationship with God and our own individual ‘calling’.
When I think of vocation my thoughts immediately turn to the parable of the Wedding Banquet. In this reading the main players are at the Wedding Banquet or they are not. We either accept the invitation or we do not. It’s not that God chooses only the best of us, in fact the decision is yours to step up or not, to listen or to ignore.
Listening then, is the key, to growing a relationship with God and to discovering and making the best of the talents he has blessed us with. Yet there is more, because we all live in one community, one body in Christ, we are called to do this together as a faithful and loving people. We can’t have a banquet on our own, it needs others.
And so I urge you to pray. Pray for yourselves and pray for your neighbours. Pray for your own calling and that of your brothers and sisters. Pray for the faithful and the faithless. Pray we travel together, in all we do, and that our souls grow ears for God.
Pray that we listen and that Gods will is done.
Revd Stephen
Further Reading
Matthew 28.16-20 / Matthew 4.19-20 / 2 Timothy 2.2 / Acts 9.36 / Ephesians 5.1-2