Irrevocable Calling

As I was reading through Romans the other day, this verse nearly leapt off of the page. It takes me back many years ago in my own life.

Have you ever thoroughly messed things up in your life? I mean like MESSED IT UP – there’s no turning back, and you and everyone around you are left in a tsunami of destruction?

Well, that was me. Even years after fully repenting (completely turning the opposite direction), I still felt a sense of shame, guilt, and I felt like I completely demolished the calling God had shown me so many years earlier.

Let me start by saying guilt and shame are never from God. The enemy uses these to keep you imprisoned as if forgiveness isn’t possible and as if your actions become your identity. That’s exactly what I was allowing him to do.

Too many times my thoughts told me, “You can never minister to girls and women again. You can never minister to anyone about marriage. You have no credibility. You have completely ruined the call God placed on your life.”

Then, I would hear verbs I had done turn into nouns that I am. You know that voice that says, “You failed. Therefore, you are a failure.”

I found myself in a deep depression for probably somewhere close to 5 years after turning myself around to face God again. Most people didn’t know because I was good at faking it. Well, I thought I was good at faking it. I remember a few years back when one of my kids started talking about how depressed I was, and it opened the door to a conversation we hadn’t had before. I thought I had hidden my depression well around my kids, but they were able to see a mom who wasn’t the same as she was before. Although they were incredibly young, they remember mom laying in bed all day and trying to smile for them all while their little eyes and ears saw through the façade.

I walked around like a zombie for years feeling like I no longer serve a purpose because I completely failed in so many ways, and I couldn’t see past those mistakes. It wasn’t until someone spoke truth in me that my eyes were opened to how I was willingly handing the enemy my own personal keys to my own personal prison.

She said, “What makes you think you’re so powerful that your actions can completely change the trajectory of the call God placed on your life before you were even born?” She went on to say, “Don’t you think God already knew all the ways you were going to fail before he even called you to this purpose?”

BAM!

That woke me up like she had slapped me in the face with all her might. I needed to hear that.

Paul tells us in Romans that our gifts and our calling are irrevocable. That means they’re irreversible, established, unchangeable, and final.

Let’s face it. We are going to mess up and fall so many times along the way. No matter how big or small, God already knew.

Don’t mistake this message as me saying to go out and mess up all day long because God’s grace is free and infinite. That’s not at all what I’m saying. What I’m saying is God already knew the different ways our sinful nature would win over our Spirit, and he still called and gifted us. While a true heart change means letting the Spirit lead the way, we still have that flesh that we sometimes allow in. Paul talks about all throughout Romans. This is why we need Jesus.

Of anything you take from this post it’s that no matter what your past looks like and no matter how badly you have strayed from God, it’s NOT too late to turn back to him. He will redeem you. He will restore you. He will use your story for his glory if you allow him to. You have not lost the calling God placed on your life. You don’t have that much power. God is the first and the last. He is the beginning and the end. He called you in the beginning, and he’s still calling you today. Don’t let the enemy convince you it’s too late.

It’s never too late for God to use you for his kingdom. What has he called you to do?