Catalyst Track: Know Your Why // Day Three

This week’s track comes from Ken Costa’s book, Know Your Why.

Why am I here? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times in a thousand different ways.

It’s a question I’ve been asking and continue to ask of God. You see, at the heart of the Christian faith is a big, fat why. And that why takes the shape of a calling. A calling for us to be here, in this place and at this time. A calling for us to live out our faith and values in the rough-and- tumble of our everyday existence. A calling to engage with the world around us in the power and the light of Christ.

The difficulty is working out how to follow that call. This common calling that applies to every Christian in every age and in every walk of life—to make known the good news of Christ to every generation— is unchanged by circumstance or culture.

So what does that look like practically, for each of us as individuals, in our own unique situations? What does the Great Commission have to say specifically to you and me at seven forty-five on a Monday morning, in a traffic jam or crammed into a commuter train, on the way back to work?

One of the great struggles of modern faith, I believe, is trying to work out what our common calling looks like in the here and now.

In this 4-day track, Ken Costa both encourages and challenges leaders in one of the most fundamental questions we can ask: why?

It can be a daunting question, and perhaps even elusive at times.  But it’s also one that both leaders and those they lead ask of themselves on a regular basis and the answers discovered can have profound impact not only in the lives of individuals, but on whole organizations as well. 

Take the next few days to not only explore your passions, gifts and skills that shape your why, but get back to the very root of it all – the gospel. 

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DAY 3 – Called to Passion

 

Very often when people talk about calling, they try to remove human autonomy from the equation. They imagine that our desires, our concerns, our passions and talents are irrelevant. But the fact that our loving Father has called us should not negate the freedom we have to make choices. Something much more liberating, exciting, and fulfilling lies ahead when we seriously seek the call of God in our lives.

Crucial to understanding our callings is understanding ourselves. Seeing the passions and desires that God has placed within us—the talents and dreams that await realization in him. The truth is that God gives us passions for a reason. He will not call us into something that makes us miserable or that is a waste of our talents. Frederick Buechner, the American theologian, once wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Of course, some needs are more conspicuous than others, and some passions can strike us as more obviously worthy than others.

It can seem more difficult to find a cause worth fighting for, let alone dying for, in this modern, noncommittal world where anything seems to go. Yet we can see many remaining injustices, if we take the time to look. The trafficking of people as sex slaves, the destruction of parts of the planet, the scourge of extreme poverty, and the growth of inequality at our own back doors are but a few pressing examples of injustices crying out for the transforming hope of the gospel.  But it’s also important to remember that the world’s deep hunger for Jesus is not confined to deprived communities and instances of injustice in war-torn areas of the world.

Anyone who has ever worked on a bank trading floor knows the spiritual emptiness that can accompany the cutthroat competition and false bravado on show there. That is a place of deep hunger, and that same hunger exists throughout the working world. The world is hungry for godly lawyers, godly bankers, godly charity workers, godly shop assistants, and godly teachers! The great and humbling truth of Christianity is that God in his wisdom chooses to work through us and with us.

He calls us out to be his hands and feet in the world, each with a special role to play in the expansion of his kingdom.

CHALLENGE:

Take some time today to ponder & answer these questions in a journal or in prayer.

1. What topics or issues get you excited to think and talk about?
2. What are a couple of ways you feel God has gifted you? Some examples include the ability to empathize with others, analyzing data and finding solutions, communicating verbally, etc.
3. Remembering that people everywhere, in every circumstance and sphere need Jesus, where do see yourself able to live out your interests and talents? i.e. in a corporate setting, a particular leadership position, etc.