The one who calls you is faithful

By Max Sahl  |  Wycliffe Today Autumn 2021  |

The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. 1 Thessalonians 5:24 (NIV)

At certain times in our lives, God calls us to do (or surrender) something for him that requires a large measure of faith. In 1997, my wife Helen and I felt God calling us to join Wycliffe Bible Translators Australia and serve in Papua New Guinea. This meant leaving the secure job that I had with the Queensland Education Department and gathering a team of supporters who would faithfully stick with us as we headed off into the great unknown. 

At our commissioning service, our church asked, ‘What Bible verse would you like to have prayed over you?’ After some thought, we decided that 1 Thessalonians 5:24 best captured our feelings of fear, uncertainty and inadequacy at the time—The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. 

It is just a short verse included in a collection of final instructions from Paul to the Thessalonian Church, yet it has been significant to us in all the years since we took that first step of faith. We are all called by a faithful God but the work is his and not ours. He is the one that will do it. In all our circumstances God is with us and loves us. He has a hope and a future for us and that makes me want to celebrate his faithfulness!