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How can you discover your God-given calling? One important place to start is by looking at the way God has already equipped you. Your spiritual gifts, natural abilities, strengths, and passions can provide important clues about how God wants you to serve.
God does not give every believer the same gifts or abilities. Instead, He equips each of us differently so that we can serve others and contribute to the Body of Christ.
In Part I, we looked at what it means to walk in your calling. Now, we will take the next step and explore how your gifts, strengths, and passions can help you discover your God-given calling.
Your Gifts Can Reveal Clues About Your Calling
Our story says that after creation the animals got together to start a school. The animals wanted the best school possible—one that offered their students a curriculum of flying, running, swimming and climbing.
The duck was an excellent swimmer but made only passing grades at running and climbing. Moreover, the duck had to stay after school every day to practice running until its feet got badly worn and even its swimming got affected. The rabbit was the best at running but could not learn how to swim.
The squirrel was a peak performer in climbing but could not learn how to fly even though the squirrel tried very hard. The eagle was the best at flying but as you can imagine not so good at running and swimming. [I’ve adapted this story from the book What you do best in the body of Christ by Bruce Bugbee]
Discover Your God-Given Calling Through Your Gifts
The above story makes some great points. I believe that just as the animals in the story had an area in which they excelled so do God’s children. When we are born into this world we are born with certain abilities, gifts, talents and strengths—they are natural abilities. However, when we are born into the Kingdom of God by the Spirit of God we all receive at least one spiritual gift. The natural and supranatural gifts and abilities God gave us communicate something about our calling.
Your gifts do not determine your calling by themselves, but they can provide important clues. God often uses our spiritual gifts, natural abilities, experiences, passions, and opportunities to show us how we can serve others. Above all, our calling must remain consistent with Scripture and centered on glorifying Christ. As Bugbee puts it:
Your gift indicates the role, function, or particular way in which God has intended you to serve.
Friend, you have a God given mission to accomplish and for that mission or calling you need certain abilities. And God knew that before you were born that’s why He gave you the abilities you possess. Therefore, the gifts you received speak something about your calling—seek God how to use them for His glory and the benefit of others.
If you want to walk in your calling or if you have questions about God’s purpose for your life, looking at your gifts, can be a good place to start. I believe by asking questions, prayer and doing spiritual gifts assessments such as the one in Bugbee’s book or Wayne Cordeiro’s can be very helpful. And for your natural strengths I don’t know of a better place to go than gallup.com
Your Passions Can Also Point Toward Your Calling
Do not let satan tell you do not have any gifts and talents. 1 Peter 4:10 (TLV) says
As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of the many-sided grace of God.
If you are born again by the Spirit of God, you have at least one spiritual gift. And remember that God does not call you to do something He did not gift you.
Another thing you should think about as you question your calling is your passions. In a prayerful attitude ask God to search your heart and reveal to you the things you are most passionate about. What makes your heart burn? What keeps you awake or attracts you in the Kingdom? Or what moves you? What are you reading about or investigating about? Moreover, what are you curious about or what do you return to again and again? What are you finding compelling as you ponder the needs of the world?
Passion alone does not prove that God has called you to something. However, when your passions align with Scripture, your gifts, the needs of others, wise counsel, and God’s providential opportunities, they can become another helpful piece of the puzzle.
Maybe you have a heart for missions or for the orphans, or maybe you have a heart for doing pastoral ministry or for the sick; maybe none of the things I mentioned. However, ask God about it.
It is not worth it to miss your calling and live purposeless. We all have a part to play in God’s plan and Kingdom and God looks for people who like Isaiah will say: Here I am, send me! (Isaiah 6:8).
How to Discern Your God-Given Calling
As I already mentioned in my previous post, it is important to walk in your calling and not in someone else’s calling. You are you—a unique person with a unique set of natural and supranatural set of abilities, dreams and background. And God wants to use what He has placed in your life, for His glory.
I believe another good thing to do in pursuing God’s will and calling for you is to also ask your close friends, relatives, brothers and sisters in the Church and your spiritual leaders. Pay attention to what they are saying and pray about it. Ask them what gifts they see in you and ask them to pray together with you for God to teach you how to walk in your calling.
One mistake people often do is to make an idol from their calling or gifts. As you pursue your calling, remember that the Person who calls you is more important than the calling. Likewise, the Giver of the gifts is more important than the gifts. As you seek God with all your heart, I am sure He will reveal His calling to you.
However, to walk in your calling or to discover it often is a process, and it takes time. Do not get over anxious about not knowing all the pieces of the puzzle. Just make sure you do what you know right now and as you are faithful and obedient God will reveal more and more to you. Of course, always keep asking God and pray about your calling.
Discovering your calling is part of the larger question of understanding God’s plan for your life. Scripture gives us clear principles for knowing His will even when we do not know every detail of our future.
Take the Next Step in Your Calling
I want to encourage you to ask God if you are walking in your calling. Ask God if your are at the right place doing the right thing and for the right motives—for His glory. And a word of caution as I close my post: not all your dreams speak about God’s calling for you. Therefore, I want to conclude with my last point—surrender.
Make sure you surrender all your dreams, desires, aspirations, natural and supranatural abilities to Yeshua/Jesus. Put everything on the altar of God—actually, put yourself as you are with everything you are. Ask God to cleanse you and remove any selfish influence from the desires of your heart and from your passions and dreams and abilities. Spend time in worship and thank God for creating you. Thank Him for all the gifts, passions and dreams He gave you and ask Him for the next step. The Holy Spirit knows how to guide you in your calling—always rely on Him. Moreover, remember that there is a time for everything. So, don’t force yourself to enter your calling or do not speed things as you cannot do that with God.
You may not understand your entire calling today. You do not need to. Start by faithfully using what God has already placed in your hands.
Ask yourself: What spiritual gifts has God given me? What natural strengths do I have? What needs move my heart? What do mature believers see in me? Where is God already giving me opportunities to serve?
Then bring those answers before God in prayer. Surrender your ambitions, dreams, gifts, and plans to Jesus. Your calling is not ultimately about becoming important. It is about becoming faithful.
As you seek God, study His Word, listen to wise believers, serve others, and pay attention to the gifts He has entrusted to you, you may begin to see more clearly how God has equipped you.
You do not have to discover your entire future today. Take the next faithful step and trust God to reveal the next one.
As you pray, serve others, and pay attention to the gifts God has given you, you will begin to discover your God-given calling more clearly.
Do you agree?
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I am a blogger, writer, pastor, Director of Zion Romania Bible School, husband to Olguta, a father and, most importantly, a child of God. I also completed my studies at the King’s University where I earned a B.A. in Theology with a concentration in Messianic Jewish Studies. I love Israel and I love the ‘Jewishness’ of the Bible.
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