Several months ago, I was packing my bags in preparation for returning to Canada. I was concluding a seven-month project as a planner with the NATO Joint Force Training Centre in Bydgoszcz, Poland. As I packed, I reminisced over all that had transpired since I received a phone call on the last day of my summer vacation the previous August. The phone call was from the International Director of an organization that provided services to NATO in Europe. As the Director presented his offer of employment in Poland, I had to sit down. Then, too, as I listened, I reflected on the previous two years, during which I had received several similar phone calls to go to other countries and give a testimony of the goodness of God as I worked alongside a secular audience. The Lord had granted me the privilege of serving Him as a short-term missionary among foreign militaries. I was grateful, for it was an answer to prayer.
Earlier that day, I had been approached by the Director of another organization and asked to go to the UK to work with the British Army as a team leader for a planning team. I had met this gentleman two months previously, and we routinely had morning coffee together. During our coffee time, I was able to share with him my faith in Jesus and how Jesus was so different from the religious institutions with which he was familiar. He expressed his desire to continue our conversations when I arrived in Salisbury. I was looking forward to working with him.
While serving as a Christian in the Canadian Armed Forces, I had adopted the operating principle that wherever and whenever the Lord called me to serve Him, I would go. This principle is rooted in Matthew 4:18-22 where it is recorded that Jesus called “Simon who was called Peter and Andrew his brother,” who were fishing, to follow Him, and He would make them fishers of men. The response of the two men was immediate. They left their work and followed Jesus. Five verses are not much upon which to base a philosophy of life. But they are not just sentences in just any book. They are the exchange between the living God and two people who were made in His image. Jesus’ call to Peter and Andrew was not a suggestion. It was an offer to follow the living God as He brought His message of love, hope and eternal life to the broken world. He did not provide terms and conditions for their following. Jesus called them, and the right response, the only response, was to follow.
I confess that my perspective is influenced by my military service. While only given infrequently, a legal order from a superior ranked individual is not a suggestion, it is not a request, it is a command, and the only right response is obedience. When the centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant, and Jesus offered to come to his home to perform the healing, the centurion’s response amazed Jesus because he understood that Jesus was the supreme authority whose very command rendered a person healed (Matthew 8:5-13).
John repeatedly equates obedience to Christ as a demonstration of one’s love of Christ (John 14:21, 23; 15:10; 1 John 5:3 2; 2 John 6). So, since Jesus calls, since all authority resides in Him, and since obedience is a demonstration of my love for Jesus, I obey. I will do whatever I am called to, whenever I am called to, wherever I am called to.
As I reflected on these callings, on my operating principal, and where my obedience had taken me, my phone pinged with the arrival of an email. I had received a request to submit an application for the Executive Director role at Ottawa Innercity Ministries. This was not on my radar. Several years previously, I worked for OIM, but only for a short time. I was aware of its mission, I was aware of those who were the objects of its ministry, and I was aware of the passionate team of volunteers who served the inner city in the name of Jesus, but I had not considered returning to OIM, let alone to seek the role of Executive Director (ED). However, after some reflection and prayer, I applied. Several months later, I am serving as the ED alongside an incredible team of passionate servants. And I am again reflecting.
In my walk with Jesus, as I have sought to be obedient to His call, I have found myself in places that I had not planned for. But in every situation, I can see how He has prepared me for what He has called me to, and I see, in part, how He is using the circumstances to continue His process of sanctification through trial, tribulation and joy.
I am sharing this with you because I am wondering, what about you who are reading this blog? Do you know Jesus? Have you responded to His call to follow Him? If you have, are you following without conditions? Are you following wherever and whenever He calls? The Lord stated in Ephesians 3:20-21 that He can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within those who follow Him. The key is following Him. In my experience following Jesus is the greatest adventure that anyone can become involved in. I am wondering, is He calling you to serve Ottawa’s inner city? Join us and become a fisher of people.
~ Gerry Potter, Executive Director
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