Answering the Call

Last night I attended the annual Pepperdine Associates Dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, one of the nicest hotels I have ever been to! It was quite a swanky event with successful and inspiring people sipping on cocktails and dressed to the nines. Pepperdine donors, faculty, staff, students and other guests attended to celebrate the various achievements of Pepperdine, servant leaders, positively impacting the world around them. The Associates Dinner Co-Chairs opened the evening by sharing about their service experience this past Spring Break with Pepperdine students in Fiji, where they gave sight, in performing optical surgeries, smiles, through doing dental work, and love, as they played with the children and laughed and cried with those who received treatment.

The key-note speaker of the night, Richard Stearns, the President of World Vision U.S., spoke with such humility, passion and yearning. He reminded the affluent audience of the various pangs our world is feeling right now; with the aftermath of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the war in the Congo, the conflict in Burma, HIV AIDS epidemic, hunger, child mortality, starvation, homelessness, etc. He shared some national statistics relating to these unfortunate hurts of many across the globe and emphasized that so many of these problems can be easily avoided and fixed. Everyday 24,000 children around the world die from starvation or lack of proper nutrition. This is completely preventable and unnecessary. Issues can be prevented and remedied by all of us. Stearns evidently tugged at our heart strings, and made us feel guilty about the delicious meal we just ate, as he shared his personal anecdotes relating to his work with World Vision U.S. In a response to the theme of the night, “Answer the Call”, Stearns defined the difference between a calling and a career. A line he said that really resonated with me went something along the lines of this: a career is something you give your life to and a calling is something you give up your life for.

When a Christian is asked the question, “Do you want to follow the will of God and his calling for your life?” the answer is usually an instant “yes!” But when you think about it, do we really want to? Because He will definitely pull us out of our comfort zone and into a challenging task, no doubt.

Stearns really got me to thinking, would I answer the call? Would I really be open to it? Could I give up what I think I want for what He wants? Easier said than done, but I think I’m up for the challenge and even if that means a drastic life change.