“Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:” (2 Peter 1:10). I think most of us tend to think that when it comes to our personality or our mind or our soul or identity, there is just one cohesive entity calling all of the shots. But how many of us have ever felt torn in two by a difficult decision? The truth is we are a big jumble of different motivations and subpersonalities and drives and desires and dreams and fears and hungers and all of them are clamoring for a chance at the driver’s seat. Our brain might say one thing but our heart might say another, and our stomach a third. No wonder we are always stumbling and falling and failing! But Peter tells us how we can never fall again. When we recognize that the calling that our Father in Heaven extends to us is the best thing for us in an overall collective sense, but also the best thing for all of the individual and disparate parts of ourselves as well, then we can with all diligence work to make our calling and election sure by having an honest election with all of the different parts of ourselves. When we choose to vote on God’s plan not only with our faith, but also with our doubts, not only with our hope, but also with our despair, not only with our love, but also with our hate, not only with our pleasure, but also with our pain, not only with our strength, but also with our weakness, then in the honest and open election of our souls, we will have a unanimous vote for the only calling that is sure to make our life better in every conceivably possible way. “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” (Ephesians 4:16). As we elect with every part to give heed to the calling unto which we were born and created to fulfill, all of the separate aspects of our psyche will start to build each other up in love instead of tearing each other apart in enmity and confusion. God desires for each of us to make our calling and election sure, not a nail bitingly close toss-up. He doesn’t want us to follow Him with the majority of our heart, mind and strength, but rather we are to worship Him with our whole soul. As every aspect of ourselves votes on whether or not to follow our Savior Jesus Christ, Jesus should win in a landslide.
