Launch Your Ministry Chapter 3 of 27
<-Chapter 2 Chapter 4-> Return to FulltextFinding Your Calling
Condensed Version (Completed)
How do you go about finding your calling? Firstly, realize that it is not based on your natural desires.
We each have different temperamental strengths, but your temperamental strengths do not decide your calling. You may be good at something, like communicating with others, but it does not mean you are called to do that.
You may also have had some tough times in life. Do not assume that God will call you to minister to other people who have also been through that.
Unbelievers often have the same desires burning in them. Many charitable organizations do wonderful things, but they are not called of God. They are in a World System that does not honor God at all.
Your calling is unique and you did not have it before you were born again.
It Is Unique
Here is the part that makes a calling stand out the clearest. Most other people do not have the same desire as you.
If there is one quality that shows your calling, it is when you suddenly want to do something that others do not want to do.
You suddenly have a desire to get involved in something that you are unqualified to do. You are incapable of doing it, and you have never had experience with this before.
Ministry on the other hand is not unique at all. It comes from a burning desire. You may have thought that if you could find your burning core desire you could find what God has put in you, but a burning inner desire does not denote a calling.
Does that mean you cannot fulfill that desire? Would it be wrong to do this as a ministry?
Not at all! In fact if you were to do it with faith, hope and love, God would even anoint you with His power and give you Divine ability to make you a blessing.
So what do you do? Do you stand and wait for your calling before you do anything?
No, you should start where you are, with all the desires that burn in you, and begin to fulfill those as a ministry.
Then as you continue to do ministry you will find yourself progressively coming to a place where your calling becomes clearer.
Where to Start
What is available to you right now that you can do for the Lord? Look around and see people that you can help and get involved with right now. Start doing whatever is there.
And who knows whether God will use that to lead you progressively into finally uncovering your calling?
I often use the picture of a moving ship. The only way to steer a ship is to get it moving. Go in any direction. It does not matter. Find something to do and get doing it.
The Lord will step in and start to change your rudder. Suddenly you will find yourself veering off into a whole new direction.
You could try many things before you start coming to that place where you know that this is where you should be.
Chewing Rubber
I have often shared the story of the boy who chewed rubber, and I will share it again here.
There was a little boy who kept chewing on rubber. He chewed on pencil erasers and any kind or rubber he could find. His parents thought something was wrong and had him tested medically.
After doing some tests they discovered that his body was lacking in sulphur, and it seems that rubber has a lot of sulphur in it. So each time he chewed on rubber he was supplying what his body needed.
He kept doing it again and again and chewed up all the rubber he could find. Sometimes finding your calling also works this way. Get chewing on everything you can find.
Do what burns in you and what does not burn in you. Keep doing it, and one day you will find that something drops into place and you think to yourself,
"I seem to be doing things differently to others, but I feel really good about it."
That could be the first sign that you are finding your calling.
Putting It Together
Your calling is a supernatural thing, and God will progressively unfold it to you, until you get specific revelation.
He may use someone to give you a prophetic word. He may give you a dream or a vision or a personal revelation to confirm your calling.
Once you find your calling, you can set sail, pull out all the stops and head out. Do this until God chooses to increase or change it. Because your calling is progressive and can be increased.
Only when your inner desires and your calling come together are you ready to do real ministry.
We will look in the next chapters at ways in which we can fulfill different kinds of ministry, and the tools that God gives us to do this.
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