Sometimes The World Says It's Name To Us

It's been going on for some time now.  I can tell you the order by heart. 

I sense.  I listen.  I hear.  I question.  I feel.  I negotiate.  I hedge.  I refuse.  And every morning He plays His trump card; I have to look myself in the eye.  What makes my "The Man In The Glass" moment so poignant is not that I am cheating myself.  It's that I am cheating Him.

Now, one would think the realization of a calling is a beautiful and wondrous thing, and, on some level, it is.  But what was this tension I was feeling?  Why did I try to bargain my way out?  Why was I secretly hoping someone would tell me this was not the career path for me, that I would "not be good at this"?  It wasn't until I read The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I understood.  In Discipleship, Bonhoeffer wrote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."

It seems so obvious to me now.  I was in mourning for the life I had been living, and I was frightened of my life to come and what God may ask of me.  I was coming into a new understanding of what "home" is.  It is not my physical dwelling.  It is not my city.  It is not even my family and friends.  It is where He wants me to be and what He wants me to be doing. 

So point me toward Ithaca.  This is my epic narrative.  Odysseus got nothin' on me.  Then again, he had more gods to wrestle with than I do.