“On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree.” (“The Twelve Days Of Christmas”). Near the beginning of the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ferris repeatedly calls his friend Cameron to get out of the house and join him on an adventure. Cameron comes to the realization that Ferris is not going to give up and he will just keep calling him over and over and so he might as well just answer the call to adventure. This is often how the Lord works with us. The boy Samuel was woken up by someone calling his name. It was not until the fourth call that Samuel recognized the voice of the Lord and was ready to receive the Lord's calling. When Elijah was taken to the top of the mountain and experienced a fierce wind, and then an earthquake, and then a fire, it wasn't until the fourth calling in a still small voice that he recognized the Lord. Balaam had to be thwarted three times by a destroying angel and his own donkey before he was ready to accept the fourth calling. Jonah ran away, jumped off a boat in the middle of a storm and was swallowed by a whale before he was humble enough to answer the fourth call. Peter denied Christ three times but on the fourth time, when he was hauled before court and pressured to deny the Christ, he would not do it. Even Jesus Christ pleaded three times to have the bitter cup removed from Him, but on the fourth and final effort to accomplish the Atonement, He proved that He would always do His Father's will no matter what. The scriptures are full of fourth calls. How beautiful it is that the Lord does not give up on us and He will keep calling until we are ready to answer the call. If we have missed calls in the past, that doesn't mean that we have completely squandered our chances. If we are currently striving to ignore a calling right now, then maybe we need to examine our lives and figure out what it is that is holding us back from submitting to the will of our Heavenly Father. Either way, whether He has to call us once or four times or a thousand times, God will not give up on us. He has a work that only we can do and He is going to keep calling until we are ready to do that work. I am so grateful for all of the callings I have received and I know that as unlikely as it may seem from the outset, the Lord's callings will always be for our good. I hope that at this time of giving and receiving, we will not leave the Lord's callings unopened and unreceived.
