God gives us new revelation when He sees us going off in the wrong direction…or when we are aimless and unsure…flailing…or sometimes in preparation for something He wants us to know or do to fulfill His will. Revelation comes in His timing and in His way and is unanticipated. It is from the heavenly realms.
One of my favorite topics of interest and writing is on callings. It has started with the pursuit of our calling, as a family. There is so much God is revealing to our hearts about callings right now. Brian and I have often talked about it…and saw things a bit differently. In this wonderful book, called “Rising to the Call” by Os Guinness, He dissects the subject of God’s Call in so many ways, that it breaks it down beautifully to show ways that God calls, what a calling looks like, what it isn’t about, how people’s callings might be at different stages of their lives and may look drastically different from each other, how some are called to minister in the church, but some are called to minister to the secular…the differences in how people understand themselves, their lives, and their gifts, and how God sees all of it and uses it. I’m only halfway through the book (don’t worry, if you want to read it, it is small!), and God is already changing perceptions I have held, and opening my mind to new ways that He might work in our lives. I still don’t know our calling…and it seems we might be the kind that God reveals a calling to over time, but my heart is at peace with my first and foremost calling as a Christian–to love Him with all my heart, mind, and strength and to love my neighbor as myself. All the rest is in His hands and I am content to wait patiently for Him to reveal it over time.
It is a beautiful thing, though, isn’t it? How God can orchestrate our lives, our gifts, our natural inclinations, our dreams, our experiences, everything, in preparation for HIS CALL? I am amazed at the greatest MIND in the world…who does all of this in all of our lives and works everything together for the good of His Kingdom. It is simply beyond our greatest imagination. He is SO BIG and SO GOOD. I know this to be true from everything I have learned of God. But, yet I know, many things in my future will test this understanding.
“Without faith, it is impossible to please God.” Without faith, it is simply knowledge, the seen, the understood…it is what we think in our heads to be true…it isn’t out of unconditional love or adoration or trust or obedience…it is what WE make it to be. Faith sets everything on God. It makes the knowledge go from our heads to our hearts…and it becomes experiences that test us in which we apply God’s truth, out of faith (this usually means going against our natural feelings)–we are simply saying, I TRUST YOU GOD. I am choosing to BELIEVE you. I am a bond-servant to you and you alone. It’s about committing our lives to Jesus. We choose who we will serve–Him or the Enemy. We are a servant to one or the another in each choice we make, so we must choose in WHOM we will believe, and on whom we will set our lives, our foundation.
Jesus asks his disciples at the end of Luke—when I come back, during the reign on the Son of Man, will I find any faith on earth? It’s all about faith. We cannot please God without having faith. Knowing God’s calling for our lives takes much prayer, much faith, knowing His calling is about HIM and not US. He cannot use us fully until we truly understand it is all for His purpose and His glory.
God is aligning our desires with His. We are casting out our perceptions and our selfish desires for the future and are waiting to hear HIS CALL.
Walking in Faith 