Christian vocation is the fulfillment of God's purpose in us as His children. As such, it is the end of healing. It is the result of our being brought into the presence of God, and equipped with the wholeness He has in mind for me. It is the end result of His preparing me to work together with Him as a New Creation.

The healing of the spirit, or the mind, or the soul or the body all point to this one end. We are to become all that He has created us to BE in order that we might DO all that He has created us to do. It is the BEING and DOING with God in His will that define our vocation. It is our living into Jesus' saying on the mount, "You shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." Mt 5:48

It has been my experience that when we realize what it is we are trying to do, we are better able to find the tools which we are to use to use for the task at hand. To consider healing without considering what God is seeking for us, is often to look for the wrong thing.

When we seek wholeness, we must see that God alone holds the key to its meaning. He alone knows why we are here, and what we are to be and do. We begin with the Author of the Creation who knows what the task entails, not with the methodology we will use to accomplish the task He calls us to engage.

The healing of the spirit is an essential element in the whole of the healing quest since it is the one that brings us into the relationship with God that we seek; and it enables Him to lead us into the way that He has created for us to walk in.

We are to be reconciled to God that He might have access to our lives and direct us to the wholeness which He alone can define for us.

God does not call us first to go minister. He calls us to Himself. When Jesus called Peter and Andrew, he said, "Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." He did not say, "Go fish for men."

They were not able to go fish for men until they had first been equipped to know what Jesus was talking about when He said, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." They had to see that the Kingdom would not be brought in by any effort of their own, but by Holy Spirit working God's will through

them.

They had to receive Holy Spirit so that they could be the expression of the presence of the incarnate Lord in their flesh. The works that He did, they were to do; but only as they were empowered by the same Holy Spirit that He had received into His own humanity at His baptism. Humanity cannot do God's work FOR God. They can only do it WITH God as He comes to make Himself known through us.

They had to see that their allegiance was to Him and to Him alone. It was only then that they could embark on their vocation. That did not mean that they were perfect. It meant that they were moving toward the perfection for which they had been created, and to which they had been called.

They spent three years in Jesus' presence listening to His teaching, watching His love, witnessing He complete devotion to prayer in which He communed with Abba, trying to protect Him from the assault of the people, even to the end in the Garden of Gethsemane. They did not understand their own vocation until they had received Holy Spirit in the power and love to get about being Jesus' presence in the world for which He had died.

We find our own vocation, not through taking tests, but through asking the Lord what we are here to BE and to DO. We enter into a disciplined dialog which enables Him to teach us what we are to know about prayer as an ongoing, living communication line which is so important to our vital relationship with Abba.

It is not a matter of knowing what our talents or desires are in the flesh. He does not need our ability, He seeks our availability. He wants our attention to His voice. He invites us to enter into His presence, to know His love for us. He asks us to abide with Him that He might direct us in His will, that we might be able to say with Jesus, "The words that I speak are not my words but the words of Him who sent me."

To be led by the Spirit of God means that we learn to listen for His voice and obey what we hear. Since there are a lot of spirits in the world that would gladly lead us into some new area of hell, to admonish us to accomplish Gods work with the world's wisdom, He has placed us in a community of His Body wherein w might not be left in isolation.

We have a community in which we can seek the prayer and wisdom of others when we hear some call that we do not quite trust to be Abba's speaking to us. The one measure that we have for any word from God is, "Is it in His love?" If it is not, it is not of Him.

Direction is not something that we hear before we make the decision to follow God's will. Direction is something we hear after we have decided that we will to be His, and His alone. It is the communication that follows, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else."

It is then that we begin to hear, and as we obey we hear with greater clarity. We are able to walk with the Lord in the power of Holy Spirit. We are able to perceive what we need , and seek that provision from Abba.

It is as we come into that relationship with Abba in the Spirit and find out His will for us that we begin to enter into our vocation. We are led to seek the healing of the body as He shows us the need. We begin to seek the cleansing of the soul as He shows us the need for inner healing, to move us through death into resurrection.

He can show us the need we have for the healing of the mind through revelation that He brings to us, either directly or through another member of the Body. We can show us our part in the healing of the Body as we are able to minister His love to those whom He sends to be loved into wholeness.

Finally, He can show us what we need to forgive and release those we have forgiven into the redemptive power of His love for recreation. He can show us how to release those things that tie us to the world so that we might approach Him to receive all that He has in store for us and know the perfect freedom of His service.

All healing comes together in this one expression of being made whole that we might do with Him, all that He created us to do. Beginning with the healing of our spirit, that we might become one with Him, the healing ministry is Abba's love equipping us for our vocation to become His child in the intimacy of His love.

It is in this light that we can see that finding vocation is vital to our wholeness. It is not simply a matter of our decision about a profession or a career. It is the fulfillment of God's purpose in the life He has given us now. It is the living of that new life in the fullness of the grace that He has given us in the healing presence of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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