While I've been on vacation I've thought a lot about my calling and legacy.  What is it that God has specifically designed for me and when my time comes, what do I want God and others to be able to say about me.  I'd like to share my Calling and Legacy statements here.  I am doing this for two reasons.  

First, if you have never gone through a process like this it is rich and meaningful.  I began with four foundational questions:  Whose am I?  Who is God?  Who am I? and What are the desires of my heart?  These gave way to much prayer and soul searching. 

Secondly, my sharing this is a way of driving a stake in the ground, a declaration, as to the kind of person I desire to be and become with with God's overflowing grace and mercy.  Please know, these documents are a work in progress…

Here is my statement of calling:

God called me to love him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.  I live to enjoy him and his
presence.  I spend my life in
worship and adoration and in complete and humble surrender of life, lips, and
heart.

God called me to love my neighbor as myself and to serve anyone whose need I see and
whose need God puts me in a position to meet—as if they were Christ Jesus.

God called me to Barbara as her loving husband.  I seek her greatest good, esteeming and encouraging her in
every way possible to be all God has created her to be.  I have vowed to love her, comfort her,
honor her and keep her in sickness and in health; to forsake all others and
keep myself only for her; to share my life openly with her and to cherish her
through all the changes of our lives.

God called me to Selah Savoi, Kia Regina, Gabriel
Robert, James Robert, Mihret Messay and Temesgen Robert as their loving father.  I seek their greatest good; by loving
their mother, being present in their lives, giving them my greatest gift of time
and by providing a safe home for them to grow to love God and to become all that
He has created them to be.

God called me to be a servant of the Church of the risen Lord Jesus Christ as a pastor,
teacher and leader.  I study the
scriptures and devote myself to prayer so that I might present to Christ a
beautiful bride.  I am an advocate
for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized as I seek
the peace of the city to which God sent me.

God called me, as
a member of a new tribe of people that has inherited a history of oppression
and flawed liberation attempts, to be part of a Joshua Generation.  As
an African-American I reflect upon where we have been as a people and what God
has done, is doing and will do through us if we would only “seek first His
kingdom and his righteousness.”