We made it! The final blog post of this series! I am going to be honest, the last three weeks have been a whirlwind for me. The Stepping Out series has pushed me far beyond my comfort zone for talking about faith and the spiritual aspects of music ministry. In fact, there have been a couple of times when I thought of shutting down the blog for a handful of reasons: concerns over time, concerns of what people will think, concerns over content management, concerns over ability...just to name a few. Truthfully, if it wasn’t for the encouragement from friends and a pep-talk from my wife, this post probably wouldn’t have happened. So I thank you for your support as we take this journey together...
Before you continue, I will encourage you to check out the first two post of this series:
Stepping Out: Into the Providence of God and
Stepping Out: Into Serving Others. This post relies heavily on the content discussed in those two articles. In case you do not have time, here’s an overview:
Stepping Out: Into the Providence of God explored the nature of God as provider, with whom all things are possible.
Stepping Out: Into Serving Others discussed the personal transformation that occurs as we draw closer to God. The first post was about the nature of God, the second about our own Christian walk. I believe both must be present in order to discuss God’s calling for our lives.
Let's talk about that word, "Calling"
“Calling” is a buzz word in modern-day Christianity. It is a word often used to describe the celebrity, the successful, and the financially elite. If you don’t believe me, think about the last time that you heard the phrase, “he/she has a calling…” They have probably achieved great things for the sake of the Gospel and are a leader or an activist, someone in the limelight of Christians within your community. So we, inspired by their testimony, desire to be called as well. We pray and read the Bible; we seek after God’s calling and sometimes (quite often) it never amounts to the same limelight that inspired us from the beginning. So...did we miss our calling?
The attitude of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians paints “calling” into a very different light than the modern day images in the paragraph above. Those seeking after God’s calling in their life experienced struggle, hardship, pain, and humiliation. But they drew closer to God through those struggles and found peace, direction, hope, and joy. They worshipped God through their trials and their obedience drew testimony to the promise of God. They found their calling on earth.
For the sake of clarity, I will say it outright: I believe “calling” is not a career or even a particular set of giftings. It is a disposition of worship: of glorifying God in all things and of being obedient to his voice. We are called to worship God, and it is through this that we receive our greatest joy.
An Activity of Introspection
“What has God placed on your heart?” You’ve heard the phrase before, but let’s take the time to think about it deeply together.
When the whirlwind of life slows down and you catch a breath, what defines your dreams? Have you ever had something placed on your heart and then failed miserably? Have you ever succeeded in something that you never intended to pursue? Recall the last time someone called you up and said, “Hey, I think you would be great at this, would you consider it?”
Short of a giant bush going ablaze, all of us have experienced God’s voice speaking to our heart in some capacity. He moves often unpredictably: sometimes through trials, sometimes through achievements. Sometimes the call is as simple and profound as phoning someone to see how they are doing; sometimes it is as life altering as leading an international church plant.
So I will ask again, what has God placed on your heart?
Now I will introduce the elephant, what is stopping you?
I will go out on a limb and say it’s probably fear. Fear of failure, fear of reputation, fear of financial security, fear of discomfort, fear of the unknown… you know, Grade A fear.
If this is you, I will encourage you to place that fear aside and redirect yourself towards obedience to God’s voice in your heart.
Let’s dig deeper...
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:13-14 (ESV)
Paul states it right off the bat, “I do not consider that I have made it my own,” for he knows of the providence of God and knows that it is God working through him. But there is one actionable thing that he does claim, the act of letting go of the past and striving towards the future, towards “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”.
Given Paul’s life circumstance, I cannot imagine that letting go was an easy thing to do but it was his faith in God’s promise of eternity that propelled his ministry forward.
From fear-minded to future-minded
Every day you and I walk through life attached to our past in some way or another. If you think back to your own story, I am sure that you can connect the events of that story to how you act, respond, and think about present day situations. I certainly have my own stories that immediately come to mind.
When God places an idea on your heart, the way you react to that request will be filtered through your past successes and your feeling of preparation to carry out that idea. If you have success in the area and feel prepared, the idea feels like an inevitable outpouring your faith journey. This common-sense approach helps us tremendously in everyday life: need to go to the grocery store? Build a list, check your bank for money, head to the store. Notice how easy it is to act upon ideas in everyday situations, especially when you are prepared and well-experienced in that area. Nothing is stopping you, you just do it.
But what happens when, through prayer and devotion, God places something on your heart that will send you outside of your comfort zone? What if you cannot even fathom the steps that it would take to achieve that dream? Perhaps you try to ignore it but God just keeps prompting your heart. You want to act, but you tend to rebuttal in fear. This is when we need a new approach. An approach that will not only help us in everyday life but will equip us towards stepping confidently into God’s call on our life.
Paul directs us towards an life-approach that defies modern day sensibilities. This approach can be summarized by the term, future-minded—a term that author, Warren Wiersbe, used in his own commentary of Philippians. To be a future-minded Christian is to place all things that happen in life into the perspective of eternity; our life on earth will eventually pass and eternity in Heaven is our promise. This might seem weird to some readers, I get it, but stay with me. A future-minded perspective draws the greatest sword against trepidation: fear of failure and anxiety of a better future; fear of reception and anxiety of performance; fear of reputation and anxiety of critique.
It is also a deeply biblical perspective
When God places something on your heart, He will prepare you and provide for you, that’s a promise.
Very often, however, those provisions come after stepping out in faith and obedience. Being future-minded places all of your concerns and fears into perspective:
I will encourage you that when Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea was not the inevitable outcome. When Daniel faced blood-thirsty lions without escape, his survival was hardly inevitable. Divine prophecy, not human inevitability, was the only thing that could predict the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on a cross—a death reserved only for Roman citizens convicted by government authorities, neither describe Jesus.
The thread of these, and all biblical stories that come to mind, lies in whether or not individuals acted in obedience and stepped out in faith so that God might be glorified through their actions. As you grapple choosing between retreating in fear or stepping out in obedience to the call on your heart, be reassured and know that the God of the bible is the God working in your life today.
In this way, when God places something on your heart, He is not calling you to action, He is calling you to obedience. Importantly, discernment of that calling completely depends on the depth of your own devotion and worship of Him.
Stepping Out into Your Calling
There is a reason why you are here today. There is a reason why you work where you work, eat where you eat, sit by who you sit by. You are a living light filled with God’s love for all people. Being obedient to your calling starts with just one person bearing witness to that light.
Encourage and maybe you’ll get to know someone. Get to know someone and maybe you’ll form a friendship. Form a friendship and maybe you’ll share a testimony. Share a testimony and maybe you’ll change a life for eternity.
So look around you, and notice that all Christians are called to the same ministry: to glorify God through our worship and our obedience to Him. We are gifted in order to carry out this calling.
If you are involved in music ministry, your calling isn’t music or the single instrument by which you perform music, it is to Glorify God and lead people to understand God in a way that evokes worship. Music is the gifting by which you perform your calling. Build your ministry with future-mindedness, and encourage those that you lead to freely develop their skills without fear or worry.
Let your worship be boldly filled with the knowledge of the providence of God. Let your interactions be humbly entreated with a servant’s heart. Step out into your calling by glorifying God through your giftings. Be humble, perform with excellence, kindness, and compassion, knowing that it is God that works through you. Draw people into worship as you draw nearer to God each and everyday.
Remember:
Be encouraged, be inspired, be resonant.
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