It seems as if the Deity dressed each soul which he sends into nature in certain virtues and powers not communicable to other men, and, sending it to perform one more turn through the circle of beings, wrote "Not transferable," and "Good for this trip only," on these garments of the soul.

The one thing in the world of value is the active soul,—the soul, free, sovereign, active. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man.

Consider this true-to-life scenario. Two women become pregnant on the same day. Six months later Woman A has a premature baby, small but healthy. Woman B is still pregnant. One week later both women decide they don't want their babies anymore. Why should Woman B be allowed to kill her baby and Woman A not be allowed to kill hers?

A calling is simply God's shaping of your burden and beckoning you to your service to him in the place and pursuit of his choosing.

Accepting and celebrating the thread of your own personality is the first grasp of the Grand Weaver's design in your life. You are not a number. He knows you by name.

God clearly called me into the preaching and teaching ministry, principally in hostile arenas. An odd call for a shy individual, I would think! But God does it his way.

His earthly sojourn was not an origination, but a visitation.

God has picked you out to pick you up.

God decided to love us before we even arrived on planet earth. The only thing that stands between us and God's love is our being willing to believe Him and receive it.

Thus I suggest that prophetic ministry has to do not primarily with addressing specific public crises but with addressing, in season and out of season, the dominant crisis that is enduring and resilient, of having our alternative vocation co-opted and domesticated.

Prophecy in this context may be understood as a redescription of the public processes of history through which the purposes of Yahweh are given in human utterance.

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.2