When I started this blog series on The Impact of Calling I never imagined it would be nine months before coming to an end. While I love and enjoy talking about calling, I am looking forward to many other blog topics I have been excited to share about. Regardless, I felt it was of spiritual importance to take these nine months to talk about calling to illustrate the significance of how God calls people to fulfill purposes they could not have done on their own.
With each blog we have looked at the calling of Abraham, David, Jonah, Jesus, Peter, and Paul. One of my main reasons for going on this journey with you in looking at these six individuals is to show you what calling looked like in their lives. I believe many of us wrestle with calling and discerning what God wants to do in our lives. We begin asking ourselves… “How do I know it is God’s voice and not my own voice? What steps should I take to discern calling in my life? How is God calling me? How do I know it is Him and not me? What should I do to discern God’s purpose for me in my life?”
These questions can consume our hearts and minds to the point where it becomes unhealthy. Where doubt and worry step in as we wonder if we are actually following the path that God wants us on. As fear begins to grow, we worry that we are missing out on what God actually wanted or wants us to do. One of the main answers to those questions I have begun to share is this...
The more time we spend in God’s presence
the more we are able to discern His will in our lives.
The more time we spend in God’s Word reading the Scriptures
the more we are able to discern what His calling looks like.
The more time we spend in prayer with God
the more we are able to become aware of how He is calling us.
The more time we spend listening to God’s voice
the more we will be able to distinguish His voice as our Shepherd.
The more time we spend in fellowship with believers
the more encouraged we will become to pursue His calling.
The more we surrender to God
the more He is able to fill our lives with His will.
We as a Christian culture stress so much in worrying that God only has this “one path” in our lives and if we don’t follow that “one path” we will mess it up and choose the wrong way. When in reality there are many paths we as Christians can take and if each path honors God, if each path expresses our love for Him and love for others, then I believe it is alright to pursue any of those paths. Think of it as being an umbrella and under that umbrella there are many things within that we can do that faithfully serves God and others. We struggle with the “tension” of the unknown and view tension as a bad thing, when in reality tension can be healthy at times in this area. Why rush when God says…
Be still and know that I am God.
I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.
Psalm 46:10 NLT
“Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is nothing.” Nathan Edwardson
When we as believers take a heart posture that declares, “Less of me and more of You Lord” then that calling becomes more visible to us as we learn more of how God moves and calls His people. Essentially what I am trying to convey to you is God’s love language is obedience. If we love Him then we will obey His commands and when we obey His commands from a place of love, then the more easily we will seek to draw closer to Him who formed us in our mother’s womb.
If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
John 14:15-17 NLT
In this passage Jesus is speaking with the disciples addressing their many spoken and unspoken concerns in John 14. In verse 15, Jesus is saying, “If you love me…” because Jesus loves the Father, he is obedient to what God directs him to say and do. If we love him, we will obey him too. From that heart posture of love, we emulate that same obedience in welcoming God to fill us up so that He directs us what to say and do. That is one of the many reasons why God the Father gave us another advocate being the Holy Spirit who leads us into truth. The Holy Spirit leads us into a deeper and meaningful relationship with God so that we come to know of this truth of the Good News.
In light of the past eight blogs, the calling in Mikaela and I’s life has been different than the other. For Mikaela it was God planting a seed in her heart at the young age of 10 years old upon seeing pictures of Norway from her grandparents taking an ancestry trip to Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Then several years later in 2008 visiting Norway herself and then the following year in 2009 experiencing God’s revelation in her life at 14 that He was calling her to be a missionary while reading here Bible on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic.
Then for myself it was while Mikaela and I were at a young adult conference at the age of 21 that in the midst of praying that I felt God speak to me in His Spirit and say, “I want you to support Mikaela in what she wants to do.” Norway was not on my mind while I was praying, but here God revealed His purpose in my life surrounded by 2,000 college students all seeking to draw closer to God. This highlights how unique and caring God is when He individually calls us to further building His kingdom.
Mikaela and I both also want to invite you to ask yourself, “What does calling mean in my life?” We would encourage you to seek the presence of God in reading the Bible, praying, worship, and surrounding yourself with a loving Christian community that seeks to build and encourage you. The calling you experience does not have to be earth shattering in the sense of calling you to be a minister, plant a church, or travel around the world to be a missionary. Your calling could be being an elementary teacher at a public school where you create a safe and encourage space for children to be creative in showing them the love of Christ. It could be that you feel God is calling you to be an architect and through your designs and art that you create, you want to use that as a starting point to introduce others to God who is also an artist and caring Creator.
In the third blog of this series we focused in on Jonah in sharing the impact of calling in his life in how God called him. In that blog I shared a quote from Timothy Keller that I feel is appropriate to share here with you again…
The mission of Jonah to Nineveh bristles with practical lessons for us. There is the lesson about mission. Jonah’s call to leave his homeland to preach God’s Word was unprecedented in the Old Testament, but this is the mandate given to all believers by Jesus. So while we are not all called to be preachers or prophets or missionaries, every believer is called to go.
It means to be willing to leave safety and security in order to share the good news of Jesus with others. This may or may not entail leaving physical and social locations, but it always means risk and vulnerability.
Mission is not only for a spiritual elite, or for the well rested, or for people with the gift of gab, or for outgoing personalities, or for those with theological training. It is for every person who belongs to him. It is because God is by nature a sending God. He never calls us in to bless us without also sending us out to be a blessing to others
Timothy Keller
As I draw to a close with this blog, I want to share this passage with you being Psalm 34:8-10…
Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! Fear the Lord, you his godly people, for those who fear him will have all they need. Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.
Psalm 34:8-10 NLT
As my study Bible shares, “The godly encourage everyone to seek wisdom, to fear the Lord, and to place themselves under the protection of the Lord’s angel… Fear of the Lord includes reverence and respect, and it motivates a life of wisdom.” Wisdom is an important aspect of calling because wisdom is entwined closely with a proper relationship with God as both require choices in line with God’s character. When we are more closely in line with God’s character, we come to know of God’s goodness and that it is a goodness that God wants us to share with others. Know this…
Calling is not about you… calling is about those who God seeks to reach through you.
The common theme that has been at the core of all the six individuals we have looked at in the Scriptures is that the calling was not about them, the calling was about those who they were going to serve. This points to God’s character as being full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger, filled with unfailing love and faithfulness, a desire to forgive, and one who brings swift justice against the guilty (Exodus 34:6). As Keller stated earlier, God wants to bless others through us and also wants to bless us through that process.
In closing I want to encourage you to know God deeply in your heart and to seek to draw closer to Him. The life of a Christian is one that should express love and servitude to those around them. This core Christian doctrine is found in the life of Jesus Christ whom God sent in his grace to freely make us right in his sight. It is by our faith in Christ that we are able to accomplish great things in loving God and loving others as we love ourselves. Be encouraged and confident in who God says you are as there is value and purpose in your life during your time here on earth.
Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20 NLT