Round the Sphere Again: Vocation

Called to Be Contributors
At EFCA Today, Dave Hubner lists four observations from the first chapters of Genesis that should shape our vocational theology. 

1. Work is good.
2. Work is meaningful.
3. Work is essential.
4. Work is sacred.

Read the whole piece.

Not a Higher Calling
The abuse of “full-time Christian service”.  

It disturbs me that today that we don’t encourage our young people that employment is indeed a godly pursuit. A young man with $30,000 worth of student debt, instead of choosing to pay that debt down, stands up and asks his congregation for support to go on a short term missions trip.  We give it to him. Why do we let him think the “higher calling” is to stay in debt, ask for more money, and go on a missions trip?  Because it’s seen as full time service, which is viewed as just a little cut above the rest. 

(Kim at The Upward Call).

Round the Sphere Again: The Gospel for Christian Women

For Mothers
Lisa’s advice? Remember the gospel. 

Jesus saves sinful, opinionated moms, desperate moms sure they have ruined their kids perhaps forever. He gives hope and rest on those days you’ve reached the end of yourself and you are sure you cannot do this one more day. You can’t; He can. Remember that He who gave up His own Son to purchase your redemption will surely give you all that you need. He is sufficient! Your insufficiency is a blessing because it drives you to the cross and it reveals the vast measure of grace that is yours through Christ. His strength is made perfect in weakness! Remember! Rest! Rejoice!

(Lisa Writes)

For All of Us
Kim writes: 

I’m thankful that the gospel is big enough to encompass the many different kinds of women it ministers to: single mothers, divorced women, widows, single girls just setting out, married housewives like me. May we all encourage one another, and be willing to move outside our little circles and encourage someone from a different place than the one we’re in…. May we be generous with each other and willing to reach out…. God calls us to different things at different times.  Oh, if we would all remember that, how much less criticism we’d be prone to doing.

Read the whole post at The Upward Call.

Grandmother On Assignment

Daughter and granddaughter

I’ve been a grandmother for less than a year, not long enough to be an expert, but long enough to know that all the grandmas who went before me were right: It really is the best thing ever. I see my grandchildren as blessings from God in a way I didn’t see with my own children, not because I didn’t know my kids were blessings, but because when you’re the parent, little blessings come with loads of work and responsibility. The unrelentingness of parenting can shade our view of the blessing side of children.

Grandmothering is not like that. Grandmothers do, of course, have responsibilities toward their grandchildren (I’ll say more on that later.), but not in the ultimate way that parents do. In the end, the kiddies go home; our joy is not tempered by day to day care.

I didn’t have much say as to whether or when I became a grandmother. I had children who grew up to have children, and the role is now mine. It is as simple as that.

Or maybe not. It is also, I’d argue, an appointment from God. In the context of writing about the family and social relationships of new believers, Paul writes:

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him… (1 Corinthians 7:17 ESV).

There’s a general principle in there for us all: Family circumstances and relationships are assignments from God. I am called by him to be a grandmother; it is a God-given role. God summons me to serve him in the vocation of grandmotherhood.

I’ll return to this theme again, looking at what duties God assigns me in my new vocation and how I can fulfill this calling. Meanwhile, I ask you:

• Are you a grandmother? If so, how do you serve God as a grandmother? 
• Are you a mother or father? Then how has your mother or mother-in-law served God by serving you as a parent? Or your children as children?
• Are you a person who has or has had a grandmother? How does/did she serve God in her relationship to you?