a calling

I spent a lot of the first semester of my sophomore year frustrated. I had spent the summer basking in God's love and desiring to tell every person I came in contact with about Him. I wanted to quit school and go to Africa, build an orphanage, tell people about Jesus, and love on little kiddos. I didn't understand why I had to sit in class and learn about the US Presidents of years past or work endless algebra problems. It all just didn't seem to fit.
So I started to pray. I asked God why I was where I was, what purpose all of this seemingly monotonous work had, and why I couldn't just jump on a plane the very next morning.
He replied, with His own sweet words, with conversations I had with brothers and sisters in Christ, and with His written Word. He seemed to be repeatedly telling me, "Your mission field is here. You don't have to go the ends of the Earth necessarily, you come in contact with people that need to hear of my love every single day." With those words, and the words the Spirit spoke through others I came to realize the "purpose of the monotonous".
After reading this article I was again reminded of those prayers I prayed two years and the answers I recieved from the Ever-Faithful God Almighty. A verse that began to plant itself in my heart was Colossians 3:23 which says, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as if for the Lord and not for men." Man, what if we lived like this everyday? I think people would see a difference. And what an awesome chance to be a living testimony, to live passionately and whole-heartedly, not passively and disinterested.
I think as Christians we often search for a specific "calling" from God, whether it be working in an orphanage in a third-world country or teaching at an inner-city school. Two things I believe He certainly places people in the position to do. However, a lot of times our search for a "calling" can be laced with our own selfish desire to escape the "trap" that we feel is our everyday life. We want to hop on a plane and fly somewhere unfamiliar and exciting. And there most definitely isn't anything wrong or bad about that necessarily. It's just that sometimes we get too caught up in what we want. We want too badly to have a new adventure. But God is calling us to an adventure every single day. Sometimes that excursion includes a plane ticket, a language barrier, and possible food poisoning. Other times it involves an alarm clock, a backpack, a desk in a classroom, a work uniform, and a family dinner.
Either way He is calling us unto Himself. His calling on our lives is to love and be loved. One of the sweetest scriptures that I believe depicts the adventure Jesus calls us to is Romans 8:15-17.

"This resurrection life you recieved from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us-an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!"

Isnt' that splendid? What a beautiful depiction of the life Papa desires to live with us! A calling to be loved by the Father, love Him in return, and love those we come in contact with everyday. So whether you are in some far off land or still "stuck" in the same town, with the same people, doing the same things, God is calling you. Will you listen?