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By: Lanora

Do you remember when you were called into God’s Truth and His way of life? Remember how excited you felt and how you wanted to share it with everyone. It is still just as vivid in my mind today as it was twenty-eight years ago. That was when I responded to God’s calling. When I look back on my life I could actually see that God was working with me long before I even recognized it.

The first time that I really noticed that God was calling me was on a Saturday, I was working in my garden and a thought was put into my mind that I was breaking the Sabbath day. I thought to myself, where did that come from and I just shrugged it off while I worked away hoeing weeds around my tomato plants. The more I tried to ignore it the more I thought about it to the point where I had to finally answer this nagging question of the Sabbath. Once I could prove that it wasn’t true then I would be free to go back to doing what I wanted. Notice I said, “What I wanted.” I got out my Bible later in the day and I started to search the scriptures to see if it in fact was true.

Here is what I found in Exodus 20:8-11

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Of course there are many more supporting scriptures besides Exodus 20:8 but this verse was a Commandment directly from God that I could no longer ignore. I simply had to quit working in my garden on the Sabbath and start obeying the Commandments of God. I stopped shopping and doing other work activities on the Sabbath as well. I learned from scripture that it was a day sanctified and set apart by the LORD our Eternal Father. Not only that but it was a sign between God and His people and I really wanted that.

Ezekiel 20:12 Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.

I wanted what God was offering me and that was eternal life with a condition, if I would turn from my ways and go His way. That was just the beginning for me.

Through my studies all the things that I was taught as a child came to mind in particular the scripture Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.

There is a lot of wisdom in that scripture. It goes to show you we should never give up on our children when they have been taught in the truth of God or even someone that has departed from God’s way of life. Have you ever thought that maybe it wasn’t their time to be called?

When I was a young child my parents taught me about the origins of Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentines Day, Clean and Unclean Meats and much more, although I didn’t understand them until much later in life. It was when I was about 20 years young that I left the Church of God and went into the world and just like the Frank Sinatra song “I did it my way.” It took me another 18 years to find out that my way didn’t work at all without God in my life.

What I realized was when God is ready to call us He puts it into our minds that our way doesn’t work and that God’s way is the only way of life that will work. So the seed was always there but it didn’t grow until God brought things to remembrance and perhaps He even knew when I would respond to His calling.

As I started to search more of the scriptures I wanted to know about all the things that I had heard in sermons when I was younger. I wanted to know not only about the Sabbath but the meaning of the Holy Days, Tithing, Clean and Unclean meats and the right way to live my life. The more I read the more I hungered for God’s Word. I read everything I could get my hands on. My mind was like a bottomless pit that just couldn’t be filled. I’m sure you can remember feeling the same way when you were called.

Isn’t it funny the things that you remember like; is it a sin or dishonor for men to have long hair?

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:14 Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?

I find it humorous every time I think about the things I remembered but today I’m very thankful. As I studied I asked God to help me find the scriptures that I had heard from my youth. I think God has a great sense of humor because He stopped the pages of my Bible each time to the very scriptures I was looking for. Did God have a hand in my calling? Absolutely! I have no doubt in my mind that God was working with me. That is how God works He puts thoughts into our minds and reveals His truth to us a little at a time. His Sabbath was the first thing He revealed to me and to so many others that have shared their stories with me.

I guess that is why the Sabbath is called the “test” commandment. Why is that? Because that is usually the first seed God reveals to us when He begins to call us. He wants to see if we will obey Him. If we don’t respond because we think we are giving up doing what we want on the Sabbath like working, shopping or name any other numerous reasons then God simply doesn’t reveal anything else to us. He closes our minds. Anyone who thinks that the Sabbath is a burden doesn’t understand what a blessing it is.

It reminds me of the parable of the sower in Mark 4:3-8 where Mark is talking about those that sowed the seed of the word of God. The birds that came along and devoured the seed and then again there were those that had no depth to the root because there was no love for the word of God. But then he found some good ground and they were the ones that responded to their calling and produced a good crop.

3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow.
4 And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it.
5 Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth.
6 But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away.
7 And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.
8 But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirty fold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”

You get the picture don’t you? So where are you in your calling? Are you someone that has a shallow root because you have grown weary of studying the word of God or are you feeding your mind on a regular basis so that you will be one that will produce a good crop? Are you still on fire for God’s word? I hope that you say you still feel that excitement as you did when you were first called and that you haven’t grown weary from all the cares of this world for we all know that our Adversary is very busy.

Today, I’m very thankful for my calling from God and for His continued patience with me. I know with God’s continued help I can have that intimate relationship with Him and my Savior Jesus Christ. This is what I wait for and why I was called to become an Eternal Child of God through His promise for me.