DISCOVER YOUR CALLING

One of the hardest questions people (even myself) ask themselves and find it hard to answer is ‘WHY ARE YOU HERE?’ or ‘WHAT’S YOUR CALLING?’ and for some time now I have been battling with the same questions to find out answers. Currently am reading a book by one of the greatest motivational speakers and best-selling author for whom I have shared his video (on previous posts) on how to set goals and how you can go from a wandering generality to a meaningful specific towards achieving your goals. The book is titled BETTER THAN GOOD (I recommend you to have it if you want to know the pillars to a better life by finding your purpose, live with passion and strive for peak performance.). I will share with you an excerpt from chapter 13 but I strongly recommend you to get your copy.  You can purchase it via amazon.com. Click on shop now to buy your copy.

DISCOVER YOUR CALLING

By Zig Ziglar

We could count on one hand the number of people in history whose calling in life was handed down to them on a silver platter- like a telegram arriving from heaven. A somewhat larger number have had a “Eureka” moment in which they somehow knew what they were called to do for the rest of their lives. But most of us, discerning our calling in life is a process, something that becomes clear over time.

There is no right or wrong way to figure out one’s calling. Self-examination, counsel, prayer, experimentation-all of these are helpful. But there is one principle I have found to be true; the more you know about your purpose in life, the easier it is to separate callings into the “YES” and “NO” piles.

Here’s an example; In Discipleship Journal, Kevin Miller writes about a time when he was invited to join the board of directors of a large ministry organization. He was thrilled with the opportunity. For him, it was a no-brainer-something he wanted to start yesterday. But as he talked over the opportunity with his wife, the practical side of the opportunity became clear. Saturday board meetings, evenings on the phone, and other commitments would become commonplace. His wife was in graduate school then and their family time was already at premium. She encouraged him not to accept the invitation.

He didn’t want to hear it. He sulked and grumped, trying to figure out how it could possibly not be something he was called to. It was noble work, it matched his gifts and abilities, and he wanted to do it. He went back and forth for three days between yes and no. Not until he measured the calling against his highest purposes in life was he able to make a decision. His primary purposes were to care for and nurture his wife and children and be successful as a magazine editor. He knew the board position, while exciting, would detract from his purposes at that time in his life. It became clear to him that he was not called to be on the board of the organization and he declined.

 

Source: google.com

Opportunities are not synonymous with calling. There are more opportunities in life than any of us could possibly take advantage of. And many people never find their true calling in life because they don’t measure opportunities against purpose. If you are doing things without a good reason (purpose), you won’t have the emotional and spiritual energy (passion) to sustain work. Nothing worthwhile in life was ever achieved without a compelling reason to achieve it.

Dr. Howard Hendricks, a well-known professor of theology and leadership coach, said this; your career is what you are paid for; your calling is what you are made for. The goal is to have your career and your calling overlap as close to 100 percent as possible so you get paid to do what you were made to do. Some rare individuals start at 100 percent overlap, but most begin somewhere below 50 percent and spend a few years closing the gap between career and calling.

For instance, if your heart’s desire is to travel the world, there are lot of jobs that can help you achieve your dream. Working for an airline is possibly the most obvious. Being a storm trooper (an individual who works for insurance companies assessing the property damage done by hurricanes, tornados, fires and other natural disasters) or even a missionary will take you places even you never considered.

My granddaughter, Amey was born with wanderlust in her heart. As a young child she would whine, “I want to go somewhere. Anywhere. Can we just go somewhere?”. As a teenager she spoke often about how she would one day leave home and how she couldn’t wait to get out into the world and see all there was to see. It was a subject she ran into the ground. You can well imagine how it thrilled her when she realized that’s God’s call on her life was a perfect fit for the part of her that craved travel and seeing the world. That inborn desire makes it easier for her to leave her family behind and be about what God called her to do on the mission field…..wherever that might be.

On a more serious level, why be involved in anything in life that does not help you accomplish your life purpose? Therefore, a key question to ask is, what really matters to you? What ‘floats your boat’, as they say? What do you do when you have free time? What do you dream about doing when you’re stuck in a traffic jam? Whatever it is, that’s where your heart is, that’s what you’re passionate about. And somewhere, connected to that passion, is your calling.

We need to become attuned to those moments in life that reveal our values and our passion. It’s one thing to identify those moments and take note of what they are saying to us, but it’s another to respond to them- to use those moments as a launching pad for action. Sometimes, you may not like what you learn about yourself, and that’s important too. The important thing is to have your radar on and be in touch with what your heart is telling you about who you are and what fulfills you and what doesn’t on a daily basis.

Sometimes we resist what may be an obvious calling in our life not because we wouldn’t want to be involved in the final result but because we don’t think we can pull it off. I love the story in the Bible of how Moses resisted God’s instructions (his calling) for him to go to Egypt and lead the children of Israel out of bondage. It wasn’t that he had something better to do. He was one of the most highly educated men in the world, having been raised in the royal family of Egypt, and yet he was working as a shepherd in the deserts of Midian when his call came to him. Nothing against being a shepherd, of course, but Moses was capable of more. But he was fearful of the calling God delivered to him.

Fear can derail even the most exciting calling. You can defeat those enemies just as Moses eventually did. Or you can be defeated by them and never find your true calling in life.  

PURSUING YOUR CALLING

I believe my own life is a good example of what it means to nurture a dream and not let go of it. I don’t say that to my credit. Rather, I credit the power that a genuine calling can have in your life.

Twenty years passed between the birth of my dream to be a public speaker and the fulfillment of that dream. During that time I experienced disappointments, frustrations, and, to be honest considerable discouragement. It’s more than just a cliché to say that those with a dream are the ones who keep going when the going gets tough. Not only did I have a dream, the dream had me.

That calling was the motivating factor in my life and I’ll be forever grateful that the desire was so strong. I listened to other speakers when I had the opportunity. I read about speaking. I dreamed about speaking. I thought about speaking. And in my imagination, which has always been very active, I saw myself standing in front of audiences that were cheering, applauding, and giving me standing ovations. In my imagination I made literally hundreds of speeches and every one of them was absolutely magnificent. I never stumbled, stuttered or failed.

T.E. Lawrence expressed it quite well; “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day, these are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” I actively pursued my dream every working day.

When I realized I wanted to be a public speaker, I was far from God. What He wanted for my life was of no immediate concern to me at all. I moved forward with my dream thinking only of myself and how my family would benefit by my successful speaking career. I wasn’t even thinking of those who were supposed to benefit from my brilliant speeches. That’s how far from a true calling I was.

I still find it incredible that when I did begin a relationship with God, He took the passion I had for public speaking and revealed it to me as a calling. What, you say, was the difference? Purpose, pure and simple. What I had a passion for- public speaking was without purpose. I didn’t know why I wanted to do it other than that it made me feel good.

But when I started using my speaking gifts for God’s glory instead of mine, I started seeing everything through God-colored lenses. I realized my gifts were from Him and that I could encourage other people to know Him at the same time I was doing what I loved to do. And I realized that the principles for success I believed in- integrity, optimism, joy, faith, honesty-were His principles, not mine. I came to believe I was called to encourage others as surely as any preacher or scientist has been called to do what they do. I just didn’t realize that speaking was actually my calling until I saw it against a larger backdrop-the backdrop of God and His purposes for my life.

And a funny thing happened as a result-something I never expected. When I committed my life to Christ and started studying and teaching biblical principles in my public speaking, my career exploded. And it has been “better than good” ever since.