Called or Driven?

What you do v. What you are

He had nothing at all. His home was the wilderness, his food came from the wild and his clothes were the simplest one could find. He knew who he wasn't: 'I am not the Christ', and instead identified himself as just a voice – 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.'

And yet the people came and crowded around him as he stood and preached to them on the banks of the River Jordan. Thousands gathered, hungry, seeking, eager to hear these strange words, words they had never heard before. They came forward to be baptised; men followed him and became his disciples, listening intently to everything he said. This was a poor man, from a quiet humble home where he had lived with two elderly parents, suddenly thrust into the limelight, the news on the lips of every dweller in Israel. What an easy step it would have been to allow them to think that he was indeed the Messiah, and that deliverance would come through him!

But he knew the truth; solmenly, soberly, with an air of understanding he moved through the grateful, listening crowds, eyes roving the horizon for the Messiah whose coming he had been called to herald. Then one day he saw him; as the sun beamed down on the brown earth of the desert, and the people lined up to be baptised in the muddy waters of the Jordan, he looked and saw Him appear. Reverently, as silence fell on the watching crowds, he moved towards Him and spoke: 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.'

Later, not long before imprisonment, his disciples came to him, disturbed and upset about Christ's actions amongst the people, which had resulted in their master's popularity decreasing. He shared with them the secret of his life's calling - 'A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven...He must increase but I must decrease.' Perhaps they stared at him, not understanding this man, who so easily accepted the way Christ 'took over' his ministry. Maybe he said quietly, 'You see, I get my joy, not in what I do, but in who I am – in God. I was called for a purpose, and I fulfilled my calling – Christ has come. Therefore is my joy fulfilled.

He died an ignominous death; but today we remember this humble man as John the Baptist. His name has lived on through the pages of history as the man who prepared the way for the coming of Christ. Why John? – God called and he responded. The call demanded submission to God's ways, God's methods and God's criteria of success. And John was willing to accept those terms no matter what the cost to him in pain or loneliness.

I want to be like John. Having listened to God's call, I can know my mission. It may demand courage and discipline, of course, but now the results are in the hands of the Caller. Whether I increase or decrease is His concern, not mine. To order my life according to the expectations of myself and others, and to value myself according to the opinions of others is to be a driven person. But to operate on the basis of God's call is to live the fulfilled life of a called person.