How To Find Your Calling. UNITE Link Party

I don’t know about you…but I am a runner.   A runner, like Moses.

And I have boasted, like Joseph.  Been lost in the desert, like Jacob.  Waited, for that staircase from heaven…slicing a gap between here and eternity.  Prayed for Him to show me His purposes, hoping for ascending and descending angels linking eternity with my weary, fragile soul.

But then, I awaken to a screaming child. Snap into reality as I numbly keep changing diapers, doing dishes, & filtering through limitless loads of laundry…a calling seemingly for someone else, anybody else, but me. I sooth the tantrum and out of nowhere the desert of my doubts cover me with sand traps of lies, justifying….“Maybe, there is no calling”.

Still, the number one question I hear is, “What is my purpose”.  Let me guess…you have said it too?

One of my first memories as a child is lugging a frizzy haired doll, nearly as big as I was, to her real rocking wood crib placed conveniently in my childhood bedroom.  I remember whispering to this giant baby doll, “You will be alright, I promise you”, nurturing her like I have many times, my present day, foster children…

Walking in the calling simply surfacing in me and not even knowing it, as a Pre-schooler.

Yet, there were still times I have failed to acknowledge my purposes; still wondered…maybe callings aren’t things we find, but something already planted inside us from the very beginning of time.

My husband and I read Galatian’s 1 during our morning devotions. Verse 15 talks about how Paul was chosen, set apart, even before he was born, called by grace to do good works, by a God who knew Him before His birth.

And it seems to me, the seeds of our destiny are more like a purposely placed, build-a-bear heart, put in us thoughtfully, intentionally at our making…rubbed and spoken over, loved, and warmed in God-like hands, giving specific dreams to each of us…according to His perfect plans and grace.

So, why do we panic? Question whether God has forgotten us? Pretend like He is a man, always leading us on some cat and mouse chase, dangling that deceiving carrot just two feet out in front of us…thinking He just wants to watch us struggle, run us ragged, leave us weary, without hope to fulfill our purpose?

God is not like man.  Do we forget that?

I plunk upon these keys; remembering a time in fourth grace where I spent hours upon hours creating little make-shift cardboard, hand written books. Yet, I could barely read. Disorganized, dyslexic, never dreaming one day I would be creating a blog with some world-wide platform, reaching the world for Jesus.

But now, decades later..here with you…I come alive. It is here my heart aligns with my mind, and my spirit soars from the pit it once resided in.  It is here I dream, connect, really touch the very core, uncovering dreams I have never even known I had.

It is here I have grown to become the person I was always meant to be.  Still, I never saw doing something I loved as a very real calling.

And I question, friends…what brings you joy?  What makes your heart leap? What dream or activity did you delight in…before this world of “do”, and “works”, and “get out there and produce something” stole the very hope of actually do what God has planned for you?

Still, I wonder, do we cloak our dream, wrestle most with the very thing we are purposed in?  Does the enemy of our souls wrap the core of who we are called to be in lies of doubt and discouragement, fear, and analytical thinking…

When God simply asks us to be like children and obey?

And I wonder if as children, following is easier, than when we get so called older and smarter, more opinionated and persistent, more absolute and determined to make things happen in our own strength?

Does our speculation sometimes drown our purposes?  Does our desire to work out the fleshy details, the need to do perfect our calling, hinder us from stepping out and even walking on the water, at all?

Or could it be that we really know what we were created for, but won’t admit it…even to ourselves…because if we did, it’s then we would have to commit, and might actually have to walk in it?

And from my experience…callings can be hard. Although grace opens up doors, and makes a way where there might not have been one….callings require perseverance, determination, courage, and a relentless insistence to unveil whatever He has put in us…despite our carnal feelings.

And who wants difficulty anyway?  Who wants to go where life isn’t safe or easy?  Who wants to swim against the waves?  Perhaps changing diapers every day for nearly twenty years?  Because let’s face it, I think we know…

A true calling won’t glorify us, but is meant to exonerate God, completely…solely.

My husband and I read more of Paul. Paul claiming in Galatian’s about how theologically he had everything it took to be great; knowledge, great “works”, everything his mind could know, his hands could do…

Yet, God doesn’t want your perfect doctrine.  He doesn’t seek most our good works of religious necessity.  He desires our heart.  True intimacy.  He wants us surrendered, and our life to pursue Him first and foremost.  Our calling being just the fruit of our love for Jesus, the tangible evidence that we hear His whisper and are willing to follow Him willingly…

Not because we have to, but because He is dear to us.

Still, don’t we try to justify our religious superiority, try to calculate our place in the Kingdom, work hard at compartmentalizing Jesus from the places where we don’t want Him having access to? Don’t we fill our lives with flawless theology…just to find our hearts can be left empty, poisoned simply with pride?

Isn’t it in the stillness of our surrender, the abandonment of our will where Jesus true purposes for us comes alive?

Paul encountered God, but was blind before He could see. Joseph was imprisoned. Moses was in the dessert before He walked out His ministry. Noah lived in drought, Esther was an orphan, a powerless girl completely unseen. Mary was a humble virgin. Ruth was a faithful girl who served Naomi though her husband  died and left her…

And I wonder why we can think we can run from our callings, hide, deny what God wants to do in us…when He has placed a seed in us that was always meant to grow.  His will worth selling, to buy the field for, digging up His treasure, leaving our catch, giving away half of what we have like Zacheaus…to experience the fullness of a life lived abandoned to a God who truly is our prize.

And don’t all worthwhile things cost us something?  Don’t the greatest things in life really require a laying down and picking up? And isn’t it Jesus who gave up His life so that all things in life would seem tainted in comparison to His great love that crucified, pierced Him that we might resurrect in His goodness?

Friends, rest assured…our calling is not a problem we need to solve, a hidden purpose that we must chase as if He has intentionally hidden from us.  His purposes have been in us…waiting all along.

We don’t need to find our calling…when the Designer and Creator of our calling has already found us, known, and designed us with a purpose before we were born.

What is it that stirs your soul?  Is it children? Business?  Travel?  Communication? Solitude?  Raising those He has put in front of us?

Ask Him.

Like Paul…He will tell us as we seek Him.  As we plead for revelation, bravely shedding the layers of apathy and fear…His path will become clear.

Are you ready to press on and jump forward into what God has for you? Let’s hold hands, and do it together. For even if we fall, He has promised to be there….to catch us.

His calling is in you, friends.  Will you believe it, today?

UNITE LINK PARTY

It is that time we have been waiting for!  Time to gather around the globe, placing our posts together as one, at our weekly link-up, UNITE!

And remember, UNITE is an all inclusive blog hop.  It doesn’t matter what you write about…YOU are welcome to join us!

Here is how it works:

1)  Link up a post below.

2) Link back and then comment on the post before yours.

Glad to have you joining us!  And feel to comment, even if your not a blogger, and simply want to be a part of the great conversations here at UNITE!

I just love what God is up to at UNITE, don’t you?  Now, let’s get started!