Discernment Part 2

"I feel called..."

This is another thing that I struggle with. What is your experience of feeling called?

I don't know what this means. I know what needs to result from it. I know that it's based on scripture.

Do I feel called to work in the wind energy industry, to go and do my PhD, to be umpiring football, to be getting married?

These are all opportunities that have arisen, that I've taken (or am about to take). And because they seem to be working out pretty well, I feel comfortable, a rightness about what I've done, what I'm doing, and what I'm going to do. And things have worked out remarkably well to date. I have had food, clothes and shelter my whole life. And the way that life has worked out in these last three to four years, I feel pretty comfortable attributing things to God. I am grateful to God for opening doors, and for somehow steering me... But damn! I haven't a clue how he's done that!

Well, let's have a look.

Back in college, I had good marks, and so engineering seemed to be the logical choice. That choice was made on not much more than a whim. The engineering degree was hard work. I didn't like it much. It was pretty boring. Engineers have a knack of making the most interesting topics so bloody boring.

Yet somehow, at the end of it was a sense of achievement, and feeling inspired, because I was thinking like an engineer. But I didn't have a job. I had applied for a heap of graduate jobs, and gotten no lovin. I never questioned, "was engineering right for me?" I didn't even assume it was right for me. It just was. It was the most unspiritual thing.

And then I got a job, working in the wind energy field - I had wanted to do that. None of the other jobs that I'd applied for would have given me that opportunity. In fact, I'd been looking at doing a PhD in that field... but as that started taking shape, this opportunity came up first. And away I went.

And then the GFC, and I was doing bugger-all wind energy work... but they were talking about a PhD project... so I jumped on board. And after living in Hobart for over 10 years, I packed up and headed to Melbourne.

I remember being single, just before I left. I remember thinking, "don't be stupid and fall for any Hobart girls when you're just about to move interstate." What a silly thing to think - I hadn't had a girlfriend in my 25 years of living, why would I suddenly get a girlfriend? Sure enough, I had lunch a few times with a lovely lass before I left... and enjoyed the company, but left it at that...

Sure enough, we started going out a month or so after I moved to Melbourne. Yet that felt right. It's been a relationship that God has blessed. We were engaged less than a year later. We haven't lived in the same state since several months before we started going out.

So all this happened. And it's all good. Opportunities have arisen. I've learnt new things.

But I know that God didn't make the GFC happen just for the sole purpose of me moving to Melbourne, so that I could marry a girl from Hobart. Don't I?

I think that if I only acted on what I "felt" called to do, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. But I've got work to do. I've got people to see. I have a life to live. And somewhere I might glorify God.