I was recently listening to "The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives" by Ravi Zacharius as a book on CD while I was driving down the interstate. One particular section particularly grabbed my attention (and won't let go).
"The Big Picture: Every calling that honors God's purpose for life in general is a sacred call. We notice this in the prayer of John Howard, who prayed long before he responded to the specifics of that call. It is often in this waiting that we get lost and our vision becomes blurred. God calls us a "Kingdom of Priests" (1 Peter 2:9). This status in itself positions us for the sacred. Sadly, the church has historically been a key culprit in destroying this privelege for the masses. This blunder has resulted in great cost to the church in her role in history and in society. She erred by dividing callings into false hierachies and we are still dealing with the problems that resulted...
...[Luther] did not demand the abolition of the priesthood, but rather fought for the abolition of the laity. Because we are all priests before God. There is no such distinction as secular or sacred. In fact, the opposite of sacred is not secular. The opposite of sacred is profane. In short, no follower of Christ does secular work. We all have a sacred calling...
...What is the first call for each one of us? It is to understand God's primary description of who and what we are. All the other accolades that people want to thrust at us are secondary at best. The fact that someone writes, another speaks, still others invest or play sports is mearly the means to express the greater end.
Some time ago I attended a bible study session with some sports professionals. The speaker that morning challenged the players to leave a legacy they could be proud of. He began by asking them how many knew the name of their great-grandfather. A handful of hands went up. Then he asked how many of them knew where their great-grandfather was buried. Most of the hands stayed down. With each more specific question fewer hands went up. He then made his point: each one of us is just 3-4 generations away from extinction.
Silence gripped the room. How sobbering to think that just a few generations down the family tree, no one would know that I had ever existed."
