When I was working on my undergraduate degree I took a couple of classes in geology. Most of the time I was asking myself the age-old question that many students ask as they go through some class that they don’t want to take, “Why do I have to take this class?”
As the class went on we talked about different types of rocks. The first were igneous rocks. These are rocks that come from volcanoes. They enter the world through one great seismic event. The second type were sedimentary rocks. These rocks come into being from other rocks. As the wind and the water erode away a rock, the particles settle and through pressure and natural cementing actions, a new rock is formed. The third type of rocks are metamorphic rocks. These rocks are made from other rocks too. Somehow, I really don’t remember how, these rocks are pulled back into the earth’s crust. Through pressure and heating they are changed in their composition to become a new rock.
As I listened to this in class, it dawned on me one day, another ah-ha experience, that for Christians it is much the same. All f us that are people of faith are rocks of one kind or another. Some of us are igneous rocks. We can remember our conversion experience like it was yesterday, even down to the date and time. It was a great event and we know exactly how and when it happened. For others of us, we grew up in Christian homes, we grew up in the Church, we really can’t remember a time when we weren’t a Christian and as a result we had other Christians rubbing off on us and through the cementing action of the Holy Spirit we became new, we became a person of faith. I like to think of the metamorphic Christians as those of us that God has called into some kind of ministry. We are already rocks, perhaps igneous, perhaps sedimentary, we are already people of faith and God pulled us back in and through our calling gave us a different life than perhaps the one we first had chose for ourselves.