How God calls

extracted from Desiring God
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Ponder how God calls people from one line of work to another. It is astonishing that in Acts 13:47, when Paul gives the basis for his call to the gentiles, he does not refer to the Damascus Road experience. He refers to Isaiah 49:6:

For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”

This is amazing, not only because he does not refer to his first encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road, but also because this command in Isaiah 49 is not addressed to Paul but to the Servant of the Lord. And that Servant is Israel in Isaiah 49:3, and is the Israel-embodying Messiah in verse 49:5.
But Paul hears a life-altering word—a call, a commission—to himself personally in Isaiah 49:6.
That is how God does it. Many experiences in our life come together under God’s providence, and then there is a point—a flashpoint, a watershed moment—when something in the Bible becomes overwhelmingly personal to us. God has spoken to us! A call has happened. Our life is forever altered.