Called to Eternal Glory!
Adrienne Townsend Benton, LCDR, CHC, USN
Your Purpose and Assignment
Jewel Kibble, RN
Your Identity and Calling
At the time of the writing of this article, Donna Jackson served as a NAD Ministerial Association associate director responsible for ministerial spouse support. She recently retired with her husband, Dan to B.C.
by Donna Jackson
One morning a beautiful, tall, shapely young woman walked into a conference that I was attending. She sat with a pensive expression among a room full of mostly middle-aged and older ministerial spouses. Late in the afternoon, she stirred to share. Her voice carried pain as she recounted how she had, with excitement and high expectations, followed her new husband into his first pastorate. Though the congregation was composed mostly of seniors, she was eager to support her husband and “fit in.” She admitted that after months of trying hard, she didn’t know how to try anymore.
Another woman at the conference asked the young spouse what she liked to do and was good at. The young spouse shyly responded, “I love to play my bass guitar, but the members certainly don’t want to hear it. They just don’t know what to think of me.”
The responding laughter that rippled through the room was quickly cut short (without a call to do so). Instead we pulled around her realizing that our young sister was courageously and literally crying out for understanding and help.
While this is a rather extreme example from the wide spectrum of responses that spouses may encounter in their first pastorate or area of service, it does highlight some of the angst that some experience in those early months. And it is not only the fledgling ministerial spouses who search for their place of belonging when thrust into a new congregation, military base, or campus. “Who am I?” and “Am I acceptable?” are two of the big questions bequeathed us by Adam and Eve’s fall. Our sinful nature has a lasting effect on us – like a frigid draft blowing up from deep within us and, at times, seemingly with the power to pull us down. That is why we need frequent assurance that we are acceptable. That is why we desperately need what Jesus said to seek – a constant abiding (or remaining) in Him and He in us (John 15:4).
While it is “natural” to attach importance to what people think and expect of us (and this temptation may never entirely abandon us until Jesus returns), there are three common responses that we can fall into: greater attempts at people pleasing; developing an attitude; or reminding ourselves of our true identity and place of belonging in God.
Your family tree begins with God
Did you know that all of our human family roots are traced in Luke 3:23-38? This genealogy starts with Jesus in verse 23 and moves backwards to God in verse 38: “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” We are sons and daughters of God!
God has perfect knowledge of you
In Psalm 139, one of the most magnificent and intimate prayers of trust in God found in Scripture, David affirms God’s omnipresence and omniscience, including God’s intimate knowledge and interest in you from conception on. Scientists keep discovering more astounding mysteries about humans.
If you drift into a downer, just google Alexander Tsiaras’s TED talk “Conception to Birth,” https://www.ted.com/talks/alexander_tsiaras_conception_to_birth_visualized?language=en or “Cartographers of the Brain,” regarding the Connectome brain mapping project, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoU_GF4fc6w. We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made!
Listen to God’s possessive declaration over you
From Isaiah 43:1 listen to God’s declaration in all its possessive beauty: “But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine’” (NKJV). By the way, in case you think that your sins disqualify you, read the previous chapter. The first word of this declaration starts with the word “but” because it follows a list of obstinate disobedience by those He is claiming. A text that used to comfort me when I was a new ministerial spouse – and still does – is 1 John 3:20: “If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts” (NIV).
So though it is beneficial to be aware of the expectations of our spouse and the group that our spouse serves, and amid the striving to figure out where we fit in, there is something more essential to settle. It is God’s call on our lives.
The Calling
The primary call that every person – including every ministerial spouse – receives is from Jesus. It is to a Person – Jesus Christ, not to a vocation or a place, and it is to live for Jesus.
If we answer this call of Jesus with all our heart, mind, and strength, and renew it daily, He will abide in us and we in Him. As Oswald Chambers so often said in his writings, “Be absolutely His.”
The secondary call or response to the primary call that every Christ follower receives is to minister God’s grace to others, starting with those closest and dearest – one’s own family – and then to the church family, the community, and through one’s occupation.
It has been my experience that I’m not smart or strong enough to keep first things first. Only Jesus working His transformation in me has that special ability!
English writer and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis wrote: “The more we get what we now call ourselves out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become” (Mere Christianity, Harper Collins, 2001, 225).
This chart is my little attempt to show just some of the things that make up the richness of the unique you. You are unlike anyone else on the planet. Our true identity from God is that we have been created by Him, connected to Him, gifted by Him, redeemed by Him, forgiven by Him, called by Him, and empowered by Him. Why not humbly wear your real identity and play your life with zest to the audience of One? And celebrate!
And the end of our exploring will be to arrive at the beginning and know the place for the first time. ~ T.S. Elliott