“Who are you?” Jn 1:22 NKJV
When asked, “Who are you?” John the Baptist replied, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord” (v. 23 NKJV). After listening to John for a while, his disciples left him to follow Christ. And that was okay with John, because he knew what he was called to do. Do you? You can only go on for so long “trying things.” At some point you’ve got to discover what God’s called you to do and give yourself fully to it.
Apparently Paul wasn’t a particularly great speaker: “I came to you…timid and trembling…my message and my preaching were very plain” (1Co 2:3-4 NLT). But what Paul lacked as a speaker, he more than compensated for as a writer. He wrote the inspired word that enabled others to preach! Something so powerful was released through Paul’s writings that even when they threw him in jail he didn’t ask for a lawyer or a gourmet meal because he was tired of prison food. No, he wanted paper so that he could keep writing. In fact, Paul wrote all the way to the end of his life. And because he did, lives are still being changed today. What a legacy! And all because one man discovered his calling and devoted himself to it. So the question is: have you discovered your calling and devoted yourself to it? George Bernard Shaw wrote: “Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I get to hold for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before turning it over to future generations.”
