You are necessary for His purposes

By quinersdiner | July 12, 2015

By Tom Quiner

What did you think of today’s Gospel reading?

What is your mission?

Quiner’s Diner offers a link to the reading of the day in the right sidebar. Take advantage of it.

Mark 6:7 – 13 calls us to mission …

Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.

He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts.

They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic.

He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave.

Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you,
leave there and shake the dust off your feet
in testimony against them.”

So they went off and preached repentance.

The Twelve drove out many demons,
and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

What is your mission? It’s a big question. Some are called to feed the poor. Some are healers. Some are fundraisers. Some are builders. Some are artists.

God has a plan for you and I. Big plans. The question is: are we open to it?

The great 19th century Catholic priest, Blessed John Henry Newman, says it beautifully. You really should read this:

“God knows me and calls me by my name.
God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me
which He has not committed to another.
I have my mission—I never may know it in this life,
but I shall be told it in the next.

Somehow I am necessary for His purposes. I have a part in this great work;
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection
between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good,
I shall do His work;
I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth
in my own place, while not intending it,
if I do but keep His commandments
and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him.
Whatever, wherever I am,
I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him;
In perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him;
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be
necessary causes of some great end,
which is quite beyond us.
He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life,
He may shorten it;
He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends,
He may throw me among strangers,
He may make me feel desolate,
make my spirits sink, hide the future from me; still He knows what He is about.

Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to see. I ask not to know. I ask simply to be used.”