There are gifts in you that you didn’t choose. Once you gave yourself to Jesus, you entrusted yourself and all of your benefits to him, including your gifts (even ones you haven’t discovered yet). This is the worst news, and at the same time, the best.
Separating your gifts from your calling is like trying to separate a melody from a song. Your gifts are written into your calling in the most mysterious, glorious way. They serve as implications of all you are meant to be, and to do.
Our calling weighs far heavier than we do. We are a little sail boat and our calling is like an anchor that feels as though it may pull us under at any given moment, yet it keeps us from drifting. Because it feels like a terrible burden at times, we might try to abandon our calling for a season, only to realize that means sure death. We come to find that we do not have our calling; our calling has us. We have not chosen; we have been chosen.
It can be agonizing to discover your calling, but for a thousand different reasons fail to walk in it. You have feet so you want to run, yet you crawl. Though you feel guilty, it is not your fault. You are simply not in control. Yes, this is your calling, but it is not yours.
You feel the weight of glory, and you don’t know whether it will crush you, or soar you to the highest heights. It is a wild ride.
You have high desires in you that were planted in you by a divine hand, planted deeper than you can understand. Saying yes to these few means saying no to a thousand more. It is easy to do while you can eat the fruit, yet torment when they are forbidden. They are not forbidden because they are wrong, but because they are not right. Not yet. And only God knows how and why and when.
You must either be fearful or faithful while acknowledging needs you cannot meet, yet feel so desperately. Your faith will be refined by the fire and proven true, or else exposed as assumed. If you are in Christ, take heart; his gift of your faith cannot be lost, but he is proving you true. He is proving himself true.
It is not the strength of your faith, but the object of your faith that actually saves you. (Tim Keller)
You cannot make or break your calling, but your calling will break and make you. You want it with all of your heart and soul, yet it will feel like the death of you. You won’t know how to live with or without it. When all seems lost, cling to God, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion (Phil. 1:6), for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. (Rom. 11:29)
You won’t get yourself there, but you’ll get there nonetheless. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. (Heb. 12:2)
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