Catalyst Track: Know Your Why // Day One
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.
Day 1 – Your Calling Matters
Our callings matter. We must believe that God has a plan, and this plan involves us. Jesus taught that we are not on earth by accident but by a clear intention of God, for lives to be lived well and in tune with God’s desires. To even begin that journey, we need to be convinced that these callings can be lived out in a practical way. This is not some personal pietistic enclosure of the righteous but the wider call to engagement in the community around us. Yet understanding what our callings might look like is even harder for this generation than for any previous one. We live in a multi-choice world. We all face questions about where our talents and passions might be best put to use. The pressures are enormous precisely because the choices are so wide-open and often confusing.
Your calling is the deep inner conviction of the Holy Spirit that the whole of your life matters to God—both where you have come from and where you are going. If you take nothing else from this book, know that God loves you more than you can imagine. He knows you better than you know yourself. And out of that place of love and knowledge, he has called you into the world to change the world with his marvelous light. You are uniquely loved, known, and called by God. This is the bedrock of your security in the world. “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last” (John 15:16).
So it was with the first disciples, and so it is with us. It is Jesus who chooses us; we do not choose him. He gives us a clear purpose—that we might bear fruit. No life-calling from Jesus is barren. This fruit-bearing is not a one-off spiritual high, not a temporary fix, but the development of a fruit that will last. It produces the sustainable fruit of the Spirit that matures each day throughout our lives.
Login to join the conversation!