Discover Your Calling: Step into Your God-Given Purpose

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All of us are called to live lives of influence and to have a unique impact on the world around us.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us that God has prepared good works in advance for us to do. Hebrews 12 tells us to run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

In John 14, Jesus tells us that if we believe in Him, we will do the works He did—and even greater works!

We have been adopted by God, and we are dearly loved sons and daughters. A natural outworking of growing in revelation of these truths is that we increasingly step into the influence we’re called to have. The more we know God as our Father and the truth of who He says we are:

• The more confident we’ll be to take risks and step out of our comfort zones to say yes to Him. We know that He’s always with us and that He has our backs.

• The more secure we’ll be, irrespective of the outcome of our obedience. The truth is that any success we see in our calling is only because of God’s amazing grace in our lives. And if things don’t work out the way we hoped, nothing about our identity changes—we are loved just the same.

• The less we’ll be put off by obstacles or opposition that come our way. These things are to be expected and don’t change God’s love for us or who we are in Him.

  
  

I strongly believe in dreaming big when it comes to your calling and embracing the feeling of being out of your depth. I don’t think we should be able to do what God calls us to do without Him. Instead, we should be completely dependent on Him. That way, the pressure is off us— "God, I can’t do this unless You move". And our lives point to God and His amazing, empowering grace—He gets all the glory.

How Do We Discover Our Calling?

The first and best place to look is the Bible. Jesus models the normal Christian life for every believer:

Know the Father, know your identity, and then reveal the beautiful truth of the gospel to everyone you meet. Heal the sick, set free the spiritually oppressed, restore hope, release joy, bring justice, and offer comfort. Reveal the Father wherever you go and invite others into the relationship they were made for. It’s such a significant and incredible calling, and we’re totally dependent on God to fulfil it.

I wonder how you’re doing at following Jesus’ example.

This mandate is true for all of us, but the way it gets expressed in our lives will look different depending on our unique gifts, personalities, and passions. You might feel called to impact those on the margins of society or to see God’s Kingdom come as you launch a new business. You might be passionate about politics, education, or raising God-focused families. You might want to write books or record music that reveal God’s heart, or stir the Church to hunger for all He has for her.

Whatever specific assignments God has put in your heart, I want to give you three tips that will help you own and embrace your calling.

1) Find Your Motivation

I have a friend who feels called to write a book about the prophetic. He used to struggle to get motivated to sit at his computer and get what’s in him out. When I met with him a while ago, I encouraged him to think about writing the book for his kids—as an inheritance for them. All of a sudden, the motivation came, and he’s been writing ever since.

The truth is, there’s a very real cost to saying yes to God’s call on your life. It’s also true that there’s a bigger cost to saying no. I want to encourage you to take some time to unpack the different costs when it comes to the influence you’re called to have. Identifying the cost of saying no can often give you the motivation you need to keep going when things feel hard and you’re tempted to give up.

Spend some time with God to find your motivation. Obedience to Him is always the best option.

2) Recognise Your Common Objections

The enemy is on a mission to limit us and stop us from running the unique race God has for us. He will do anything he can to make us hide, feel discouraged, and settle for less.

In order to resist the devil, it’s really helpful to identify common objections in our thinking when it comes to our calling. If we can recognise the objections, we can ignore them and keep saying yes to Jesus.

Examples of common objections:

• Who am I to be doing this?

• Someone else would be so much better at this than me.

• This dream is selfish ambition, and it’s going to make me proud.

• I don’t have enough money, time, or training.

• I’m too young/old.

• This isn’t going to make a difference.

  
  

Have a think about the different objections the enemy might try to use to limit you, and ask God to show you what the truth is.

3) Take a Next Step

Another common objection can be: I don’t know where to start. We can be so overwhelmed by the big picture and fearful of how to get there that we get stuck and end up not doing anything.

In my experience, God leads us into our calling one step of obedience at a time. If He had told me, when I stopped working for the King’s Arms, that I’d be doing everything I’m doing now, I would have been too overwhelmed. The first step of obedience was to hand in my notice. Then He spoke to me about running an online supernatural school. As I was obedient to that, He then gave me the next step on the journey.

A key principle when it comes to the influence we’re called to have is to take a next step and see what God does. He loves to partner with our faithfulness.

See What the Father Will Do

All of us are called to live lives of influence. We all have a unique race to run that God has prepared in advance for us. I want to encourage you to take some time this month to dream about what this could look like for you.

Find your motivation, silence your objections, and take your next step. And then see what the Father will do.

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Wendy Mann Equip | www.wendymannequip.com

Building Family, Prioritising God's Presence, Extending God’s Kingdom