A Different View

We have been called to follow Christ - we have been brought into a relationship with Him through
salvation and empowered by the Holy Spirit so that He might express Himself through us. 2nd Thessalonians 1 states:
11 Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power,
12 that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thought about that phrase, "worthy of this calling."  Well, we know that in ourselves, in our flesh, we are not worthy to have a relationship with God.  But, because of Christ and our acceptance of Him, He has placed a call upon our lives.  If we respond, if we are faithful, we can be confident that He will bear fruit in our lives.  That's what grace does: it takes us from being exiled from God, to being part of His family, to being in service to Him, representing Him by our faithfulness.

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The apostle Paul prayed that the church at Philippi, extended to us, would bear fruit consistent with
our faithfulness to the Lord. We can read this in the 1st chapter of the book of Philippians:
9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment,
10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ,
11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Last week on my "Famous Friday" on The Meeting House, we looked at the tenacious faith of Ainsley Earhardt of Fox News, and this week I want to concentrate on the thoughtful faith of another television personality, who is with ABC News.

She was actually one of the panelists on The View, as well as a weekend anchor on ABC News - even though some might say that she was successful in her career, something was missing.

Her name is Paula Faris, the subject of a recent article on the Faithwire website, which quotes the journalist as saying: “When I was at the height, anchoring ‘Good Morning America’ weekends and co-hosting ‘The View,’ it seemed like I had it all professionally, but my life, my personal life, was just falling apart,” adding, “I looked around and my relationships had started to suffer with my husband and my kids. I wasn’t attending church as often as I’d like. I wasn’t rooted into a good network of accountability partners, and my health started suffering.”

So, in 2018, she walked away.  God had worked through trials to get her attention, including, as the article notes, "...a miscarriage, a concussion, an emergency surgery, and a head-on car accident..."

Faithwire states:

Most Americans, the journalist explained, have “bought the lie that our value is vocation and our worth is work and that doing is somehow the only value that we bring to society.”

It’s critical for Christians to uncouple “calling” from “career,” she said.

“When we throw that word around, are we talking faith calling or are we talking vocational calling? One changes and one never does,” Faris said. “Your faith calling is your purpose, and that is the reason you’re on this earth, and it has nothing to do with career. … I thought that my faith calling was to be the best broadcaster that I could be, using the gifts and talents God gave me. But when I experience a vocational shift, then my purpose is rocked, and I don’t know who I am.”

She added, “Your faith calling and your purpose will never change in your life, no matter the change in tides, no matter the personal crisis or pandemic, it is never going to change...It is to love God and love people — that’s it.”  She sees one's "faith calling" as a vine, and "vocational callings" are the branches it produces.

So Faris is now in a new phase of life - as a stay-at-home mother. The article notes that "Faris stressed the importance of recognizing the 'lie' that to live a life of calling means to have a lofty career outside the home. The calling, she said, isn’t in what you’re doing, but who you’re doing it for."

Faris has a new book out and is the host of the ABC podcast, Journeys of Faith.

I think that this journalist offers some challenging thoughts for us.  For one thing, your calling is not your job.  Your job can be an expression of God's call, but your identity is not wrapped up in what you do - it's tied to who you are.  Next week on The Meeting House, you will meet Pierce Brantley, who offers some relevant comments about the concept of calling, so I'd like for you to tune in.

Faris summarizes each of our general callings in this statement, "love God and love people."  Jesus essentially said that in responding to the person who asked what the greatest commandment in the law was.  He said it was to love the Lord our God with all that we are and, the second one was like it, to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Our love for other people flows out of and is consistent with the love for our Lord.

Our faithfulness to the call of God is measured by the fruit that we bear.  We bear fruit for God's glory as we abide in or stay connected to Him.  One of the essential components of fruit-bearing in the Christian life is pressure.  That pressure - and our response to it - can produce fruit consistent with godliness.