Qualifying the Called

The concept of being called is something that is often heard within Christian circles. We hear of people who are called to be vicars or preachers, or people who are called to travel to far and distant lands to help those in desperate need. In our churches and in our lives we may even pray for situations, that God will call people to them in order that those within these situations may be comforted.

However, there seems to be a collective notion that being called is something that happens to other people, not to us. For that reason, when we feel called we come up with excuses to not follow. We may think, "It's too difficult", "I don't have time", "I'm not good enough". The last of those - "I'm not good enough", or "I'm not capable" is the one I want to focus on today. We seem to think that people who are called have a natural talent, something that qualifies them to be called. But that isn't always the case, and indeed it almost never is.

I want to mention two Biblical characters, and two separate incidences, which sort of illustrate what I'm trying to say.

The first is Saul, the first King of Israel in the Old Testament. He is called by God to be King over His people, yet in 1 Samuel 9:21, Saul cannot believe it. He thinks that they have got the wrong person; after all, he is from the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest tribe in Israel, and his is the smallest family in the tribe of Benjamin. But they hadn't got the wrong person. And in the next few chapters we see Saul as a good king over Israel. (It goes a bit wrong after that, but the point is, he was a good king to start off with).

The second is Peter in the New Testament. He is called personally by Jesus in Luke 5:4-11, when Jesus famously promises that he will be made a "fisher of men". In this passage, Peter and the other fishermen have been fishing all night and have caught nothing. Jesus then tells them to lower the net on the other side of the boat, and they catch many fish - so many that they can't pull the net up out of the water. Once this miracle has been performed, Peter asks Jesus to go away from him, for he recognises that Jesus is Lord and that he, Peter, is a sinner. Skip forward to Acts 3:1-10, and Peter heals a crippled beggar in the name of Jesus.

Neither Saul nor Peter were qualified when they were called, and we might not be either. But once we agree to follow, we are automatically enrolled on a training course that lasts a lifetime. For God does not call the qualified - He qualifies the called.