Thesis: What God has gifted us to do is a good indication of our calling.
I frequently have people tell me they don’t know what they are called to do, or more accurately, what God is calling them to do. I understand that. Recognizing a calling is both challenging and a bit unnerving. There is a reasonable amount of risk and responsibility involved.
The questions I typically hear are, “How can I know what God is calling me to do?” and “I think I know what He is calling me to, but how can I be sure?” And then there’s, “What if I am wrong?”
I think all of these are reasonable. I know that I don’t want to start doing something that I am not supposed to be doing, or don’t need to be doing, all the while saying God has called me to, only to find out at some point in the future that He never called me to it in the first place. This concern is not altogether selfish. I don’t want to be presumptive in assuming I can hear from God more accurately than I can.
So how does one proceed?
To answer the first question, “How do I know what God is calling me to do?”, there are several sources of information that may help. First, what am I skilled at? If God has gifted me in a certain area or skill, that is in and of itself is a pretty good indication. It’s true, God may call us to something other than our ‘skill set’ but that isn’t (in my experience) the norm. Every skill, talent, ability, or aptitude that I possess is a gift, even those that I have developed through study and practice. I may have developed it through hard work, but the gift was there. I heard a coach once say, “You can’t coach what God never put there in the first place.” I think the work we put into our natural gifts can become an offering to God, providing we then take that gift and use it for His glory and to build His kingdom.
To the second question, “How can I be sure?” I think there are two answers, one in part and the other more definite. The “in part” answer is to consult those who know me and know God. Their counsel can be very helpful. But it is certainly not foolproof. Our friends can, especially if the calling we sense is extreme, become a barrier. This is usually out of a genuine concern, but it’s still there.
A better way to “check out” one’s calling is to give it a try. Try your hand at the task you sense He's calling you to. You will probably know pretty quickly if the calling is there. This isn’t to say that the task will be easy or even successful. Rather, it’s a matter of knowing as in, “Well that didn’t go so well, but I did sense I was doing what I should be doing.” This doesn’t necessarily mean jumping in with both feet. Often, there are areas of ministry that allow us to test our calling and allow God to speak to us from there.
Finally, there is the question, “What if I’m wrong?” This is where the goodness, patience, and love of our God truly shines through. If we get started in a wrong direction, He will always be there to “correct our course.” I don’t think that God will be angry because we are doing one thing when we should be doing another, not if our intention has been to serve Him. Rather, I think God uses our mistakes to guide us to the place and the service where He wants us. Mistakes in identifying our calling can be guideposts to finding it. The most important thing, I believe, is to make the search for our calling a search for Him. We know that God wants our hearts more than anything else. If we search for Him with all of our hearts, we will be found of Him, and that opens the door to serving Him.
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