How do you know what God wants you to do?

[Joz]

Do you hear

 

[dmp]

Pray about it...then make your best guess. If one is actively seeking God's will...they will be operating 'within God's will'.

 

[Avatar4321]

I make my own choices and then seek confirmation and if God wants me to do something else ill do that. Sometimes you have to think things out before you find out what God wants in the matter. Sometimes God doesn't care what we do about some things like whether we have spaghetti or maceroni for dinner.

 

[dmp]

Precisely.

The question remains.....Are YOU living up to your calling?

I guess.

 

[dilloduck]

I guess.

I'm not sure but I do think that real life consequences can be used to guage the appropriateness of our actions and directions. After that I guess we get a final report card or something. ( I know for sure that I have a few "tardies" on there)

 

[5stringJeff]

Do you hear your calling?

A 'calling' is not just reserved for the ministry. There can be a calling to medicine, parenting, being an artist, writer, scientist.
You know it's a calling when a certain feeling takes hold of your whole being (mind, heart, soul) and won't let go. Your calling may result in a career or a serious hobby. There may be one big Calling or many smaller callings.
Are you answering your calling? Are you fulfilling your spritual potential?

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0787968951/qid=1112049993/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-6018217-9386415?v=glance&s=books&n=507846]Live Your Calling[/ame]

 

[Shattered]

I make my own choices and then seek confirmation and if God wants me to do something else ill do that. Sometimes you have to think things out before you find out what God wants in the matter. Sometimes God doesn't care what we do about some things like whether we have spaghetti or maceroni for dinner.

Spaghetti. The answer is always spaghetti.

 

[Avatar4321]

Spaghetti. The answer is always spaghetti.

cant disagree there.

 

[Semper Fi]

I honestly believe that my future is in the United States Armed Services. I can't think of anything else I could truly be happy with, nor cn I picture myself doing anything else. Im pretty thankful that I know what to set my sights on now...it helps.

 

[MyName]

Prayer and meditation.

Prayer is talking to God. Meditation is listening to Him.

 

[manu1959]

are those that are unaware of god's calling doing what they need to be doing?

 

[dilloduck]

are those that are unaware of god's calling doing what they need to be doing?

As long they are helping people instead of hurting them I would say they are on the right path.

 

[Avatar4321]

are those that are unaware of god's calling doing what they need to be doing?

Just because you arent aware of the inspiration doesnt mean it doesnt come from time to time.

 

[Eightball]

An excellent book on this topic came out back in the 1980's I believe, called "Decision Making And The Will Of God", by Gary Friesen. It was through Multnomah publishing in Portland, Oregon. Friesen is a teacher/professor of Theology at Multnomah Bible College in Portland, Oregon.

Friesen's book was met with quite a bit of skepticism initially, because he conveyed the idea that God's will for Christians, was not some specific calling that you had to be on the "look-out" for or you could easily miss it. Rather, Friesen, said that God's will could be likened to a large target metaphorically. The bulls-eye on the target amounted to hitting any part of the target.

What he meant by this illustration, was that keeping to God's will in one's life just involves staying faithful to God. In otherwords, Christians spend to much time fretting over whether or not they are in or out of God's will, when God just wants us to "cease striving and rest in Him" ala Psalms 46:10.

God is omnipotent, and He will work out the details, we just need to live the life out that He has presented before us. Christians fret over God's will for future a spouse, where to live, lay ministry, their children's schooling, etc.

God's will is a big, giant target. Questions like, "Does God want me to go to UCLA or Stanford or Harvard, or even Cal State Hayward.", shouldn't be troubling us. Just apply to all of them and let the dice-roll where it may. If God is in control and one is surrendered/committed to Him in their daily lives, then the right school will be a result of the right, level-headed decisions. If you don't have enought money or loans to go to UCLA, but your thats where your heart is, that doesn't mean UCLA is God's will. Most likely, God is saying, "Closed Door!" Cal State Stanislaus may be the only affordable college, and there's one bulls eye for that area of one's life at that particular time.

I worked for years in the Electrical construction trade, while married and raising three sons. I felt that God was calling me into ministry, so my dear sweet wife went along with my desires, and we sold our home in California, and moved out of state so I could full-fill my dream. Well, money ran out after one year of school, and after that we lived off of CARE packages from my parents, and my wife's, as my low paying job didn't provide the means to continue in school or even cover much of the basics.

Inevitably we moved back to California, and I got back into my old profession as a well-paid commercial construction electrician. Our oldest son had always been struggling with poor Kidneys since detected when he was about 4 years old. When we got back to California, we found out that he was very close to needing Dialysis! My very good medical coverage through the Electrical workers was now back in-force covering myself and my family again. Within, one year of coming back to my old job that I thought God was calling me away from, my son(now 14 years old) was on an operating table at the University of California San Francisco Hospital receiving a Kidney transplant! My electrical workers medical insurance paid for the entire medical proceedure! That was a whopping $180,000.00 and more before things were done!

What about God's alleged calling in my heart to ministry via bible college?

Now, for some reason, my aspirations or dreams to serve God in some kind of ministry that I perceived, was dashed to pieces, yet through my trek to bible school, I learned a magnificent truth about my creator. He is in control, and He also works out things for us when we just abide in Him. I don't mean that obedience = God's blessing. What I mean is that when we quit striving or worrying about where God wants us, or what God wants for anything in our lives, we will actually be able to see(enjoy) God's will working out in our lives.

My wife said to me after we came back to California, "Honey, you thought that bible school was God's will, but all along God let you go up there to struggle with dropping out of school and really learning what God's "real" school is all about."

God's will for us, is taking each day, one at a time, and not worrying(Philipians 4:6-7) about what the future should be. God will unfold His loving will to us as He sees fit, and not a day earlier. Our part is to take life like the Sparrows as Jesus mentioned. They don't spin or worry about where their next meal will be, but just make each second, minute, and hour of a day special.

Living a life of gratitude, takes away that constant yearning and frustration, that our lives are not being "used" for Him.

First of all, God doesn't need us to do anything for Him. He wants to do His will through us, not us doing it for Him. So many Christians, just apply their old habits of survival on planet earth in their new lives as Christians, and basically just become "doers" instead of "resters" in respect to their Creator. Obviously, James says in his book in the New Testament, that faith should result in works, and that is right. Most Christians misconstrue, works as a means of proving faith to God, rather than starting out with a trusting faith, and then allowing God to place situations, or opportunities before them as ways to be involved in works that glorify God and not themselves.

We must get this in our heads, that "doing to be" is totally unscriptural. The work of "being" or "identity" in our lives was completed on Calvary's cross. Now we must learn to live in that new identity, and let God do the work through us.

Christian "burn-out" is rampant in and outside the church. Many missionarys, and ministerial folks will suddenly drop out of the "Christian" scene, and never return to ministry, and the "lay" folks scratch their heads wondering why this would happen when one is "serving" the Lord. Mental, and emotional break-downs are rampant in the evangelical Christian church. Why? I think it again centers on where we Christians interpretted God's finished work in our lives through His Son, Jesus. When Jesus said, "It Is Finished!", He meant it. Obeying laws and rituals in order to "be" was over. Jesus, had given us a new born identity through His death in our place. Galatians 2:20 explicitly says, that the Old sinful man(as well as his sinful nature) is/was crucified, and is buried, and that the life that we now live is by faith(not works to "be") in Christ, who did all the work(we didn't do anything, but surrender/submit and believe).

So in summation, God's will, is wherever, doors open. It's a big fat target. God allows many possibilities. Just make sure you're not forcing some doors open that really are locked. Often "our" desires are not God's, yet in "our" passion(heart/feelings/emotions) to serve or be in His will, we start doing God's job for Him, and that's when we inevitably fall out of His will. That doesn't mean that falling out of His will is the end of our lives as Christians, but it does mean that God may have to allow some rather severe things to occur in our lives to get us back on track.

We will never have to worry about God's specific will if we will just let Him unfold life before us, and just commit to an obedience that is a result of gratitude, and rest; not appeasement towards Him.

Appeasement, causes undo worry, and inevitably, "Christian burn-out", or more commonly mental/emotional break-downs will most likely ensue. Appeasement, or "doing for Him" is the result of a skewed understanding of our God's nature. Again, the work was finished on the Cross. Our yoke is light, as Jesus proclaimed. Too many of us carry heavy, self-inflicted yokes. Faith says, "God is in control", but many of our Christian "works", covertly say, that Jesus's work on the cross is unfinished. John the Baptist said that his work and life must diminsh, and Jesus's life must increase. This is totally antithetical for Christians who continue to embrace the world's methods of accomplishment and "identity seeking".

God has indeed gifted us all. Is it necessary to go to seminars, and clinics to be helped in finding your gift? I think not. If God is indeed omnipotent, and omniscient, I think that means that he's in control. Don't you? Now is the time to start enjoying God's 7-day Sabath rest.

If we are a Mom, then God's greatest ministry for you is being a Mom that exudes Christ's life towards those children. If we are a Dad, God calls you to the same calling. In fact, as a Dad, God invokes a strong call for us husbands to love our wives as Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? He gave His life for it.

Speaking on a podium and proclaiming God's word is truly a beautiful thing that God has allowed for many men and women, but remember that God's greatness, isn't measured in earthly terms of acclaim, but often in the unseen, and what the secular world would call mundane. The world's mundane is often the greatest calling. We may not get a lot of "atta boys or atta girls" but the worlds accolades don't count in God's eyes. Do they?