Embracing God’s Unique Calling On Your Life
When God calls you to do something, it is important to Him that you fulfill your assignment. Taking action and following through on the Holy Spirit’s promptings is critical, but it is not all God cares about. Beyond completing the task, I think God is more interested in our attitude and heart posture as we obey Him. Don’t forget that anything you do for God, He could easily accomplish on His own.
The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things (Acts 17:24-25).
God Doesn’t “Need” Your Help
Humans are often guilty of believing they are helping God out. He does not need our help but has graciously chosen to involve us in His work. It is like a mother with a toddler that wants to help do the dishes. Things are far more challenging with the toddler’s involvement, but for the sake of growing the relational bond and teaching the toddler, the mother gladly welcomes her child to “help” her.
After the dishes are done, the toddler leaves with a feeling of accomplishment without the slightest clue that Mom could have finished the task in half the time. This analogy can only apply to God in a metaphorical sense, for with God nothing is easier or more difficult than anything else. He has infinite power! His power supersedes anything that we can even envision, for God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20).
Because God is omnipotent (all powerful), it doesn’t matter how big and important our assignment is. Importance is a word that society has created its own definition for. Our definition of importance centers around an earthly value system invented by our imaginations. We judge specific jobs, activities, tasks, etc. as being more or less important than others based on money, prestige, difficulty, and rarity but this is not how God sees them.
An activity’s impact may affect more or fewer people, but impact and value are different in God’s eyes. God chooses the tangible results of our assignment. Some people, like Billy Graham for example, God has assigned to have a sizeable effect. Other people, like the local small business owner, has been given a different scale of influence.
One assignment is not more important than the other. In this circumstance, both people have an equal value to God. This reality sets the heart free. It removes the burden of continually chasing a bigger and bigger numerical vision. If you pursue a vision more extensive than what the Lord has designated to you, then you are disobeying God.
Suppose the person assigned to a specific yet small numerical impact pursues and even achieves an enormous influence. Believe it or not, in this case their reward will be smaller because they were not focused on accomplishing the assignment God gave them.
Humanities Great Equalizer
This revelation is the great equalizer among men. No man has the right to look with judgment upon another man’s assignment. There is no superiority or inferiority in the value of what God has called us to do. Our primary consideration is not about how many people we influence, but in our level of faithfulness to our unique calling.
God is not interested in the size or scale of what someone achieves. Instead, He looks at the faithfulness by which the individual accomplishes their God-given purpose. Shoveling a walkway and preaching in a stadium have the same value to God as long as it is in obedience to each of our specific callings.
Why then do we constantly pursue bigger, better, and greater? Chasing the numerical “more” could be in direct alignment with God’s will for your life, or pursuing it could be contrary to what He is calling you to do.
Personally, I have set my heart to win as many souls as I can and to disciple the maximum amount of people God has allotted to my charge (1 Peter 5:3). I pursue this calling with my gaze fixed on the glory of God knowing that I am living for an audience of one. There is nothing wrong with having a vision of big numerical impact if it aligns with God’s calling on your life.
But if He has called you to impact the two’s and three’s instead of the hundreds or thousands, that does not make you any less successful to Him. Our mission is to be obedient to His calling for our life, no matter the size.
Avoiding Jealousy Over Others Assignments
The previous section leads us seamlessly into a subject that a significant number struggle with. The topic of jealousy, specifically jealousy over others’ achievements, has severe implications on our ability to live a successful life.
A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones (Proverbs 14:30 NIV).
I am regularly guarding my heart against jealousy as I notice the numerous men and women with large followings worldwide. What I have realized is that my jealousy about someone else’s impact is essentially telling God that His calling on my life is not good enough.
Who is it that you envy? Whether in a big or small way, each of us has desired the success of someone else’s life. If this person has the same calling as you, then there would be some merit in longing for their achievements. But just as each of us has been blessed with a special gift, every believer has also been given a unique assignment from the Lord.
For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly (Romans 12:4-6).
Of course, there are similarities between our assignments, but no two people have identical callings. Knowing that we each have a unique destiny gives us no room to envy the success of another individual. Each unique calling comes with its own unique results.
The Idolatry of Being a “Copy-Cat”
Copying someone else’s path as a means of achieving their God-ordained fruitfulness is idolatry. At this stage, fulfilling your personal calling from the Lord has been trumped by chasing someone else’s achievements.
Avoiding this type of idolatry does not remove our responsibility to surround ourselves with positive role models. Paul speaks of this very thing in 1 Corinthians 11:1 when he says, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.” Having positive role models to follow is not the problem. The issue comes down to your motivation. Do you think your status will be elevated if you look, sound, and act like a particular leader in the body of Christ? Will your life have more fulfillment if only you can achieve the success of your favorite preacher, entrepreneur, author, politician etc.? It is these selfish motivations that we must guard against.
Unfortunately, this idolatry is thriving in our current Christian culture. If we are not careful about pursuing success solely from the Lord’s point of view, we can quickly be dragged into envying the latest preacher on the cover of Charisma Magazine.
For most of us, our assignment does not involve being in the spotlight. Be careful not to lust after a calling that may never have been given to you in the first place. When we lust after another person’s calling, we ignore and downplay our own. When that happens, we cannot be an effective member of the body of Christ. We end up creating a void in the universal church.
Unfortunately, the church’s house is full of missing bricks. These gaps exist from well-intentioned Christians seeking positions that they were never called to fulfill. As they pursue these callings outside of God’s will, they become unable to devote the time and energy to the assignment that they were intended to complete.
My Personal Journey With Envy
I must acknowledge that I find myself regularly warring against the sin of envy and jealousy. One of my primary assignments in life is to teach the word of God. This vocation leaves me with a long legacy of preachers who have accomplished great things for the Lord.
I think of men like CH Spurgeon, Charles Wesley, John Stott, and Jonathan Edwards, who have turned the world upside down for Christ. There are the great preachers of this present age: John Piper, Mike Bickle, Billy Graham, Francis Chan, etc. All these men have a significant level of fame associated with their names. They have made a substantial impact on a considerable number of people across the globe. If they call a conference … chances are it will be sold out!
Then I look to myself, a young, mostly unknown man leading a startup ministry in a town that most people have never heard of. I teach and preach regularly, but rarely have I had a crowd of over 100 people.
I have dipped my toe now into the digital content machine with hopes of influencing a younger generation with the gospel of Christ. While I watch others accumulate thousands of watches from their messages or teaching clips, I am lucky to hit the 100 views mark.
Trust me, I understand how vain this all sounds. I am not proud of these cynical emotions. This topic is a regular dialogue that I continue to work through with the Lord. I hope that by being vulnerable, I can help those who also struggle to realize they are not alone.
I write to you not as someone who has it all figured out but as someone still working out my calling with the Lord. I don’t merely want to accept His will for my life. I want to have great joy over the calling He has given me, regardless of how many people I reach.
Who knows, maybe one day I will have a broader audience. But just because the numbers are larger does not mean I have become more successful in the eyes of God. In the eyes of man, people will look more fondly upon me if I can drum up a larger following. But to the Lord, I have been equally successful all along.
My challenge is not to equate my popularity with my success. Once I make popularity my litmus test for success, I enter a rat race that I will never win or even be able to see the finish line. I choose instead to enter the race in which I have already received the gold medal.
Because of Christ’s atoning sacrifice, I am already victorious whether I preach to 10, 100, or 1,000 people. My goal is to align with His plan for my life, and to the extent that I can do that, I am successful
Exterior vs. Interior Results
What I continue to learn is that our success is directly tied to the level of obedience that we cultivate in following Christ. Man’s definition of success is typically based on exterior results. But God does not judge as man judges. God looks at the heart.
This is evident from a story in the life of Samuel. The Lord sent this prophet to the family of Jesse to anoint Israel’s first king. When the family entered his presence, Samuel “looked at Eliab and thought, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him’” (1 Samuel 16:6).
The prophet Samuel focused on the Eliab’s appearance as he predicted Israel’s first king, but this was not God’s primary concern. “But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7).
Like the prophet Samuel, we too are naturally inclined to judge based on outer appearance. This does not just mean someone’s physical looks, but their popularity and following. After judging others, we then turn this same standard of measure on ourselves. This man-centered approach to success is at the heart of our jealousy and must be replaced with a Christ-centered approach to evaluating the success of our life.
We are all on a level playing field. Each of us have been given a glorious assignment that only we can fulfil. Our success in this life hinges on discovering that calling and walking it out by the grace of God.
Do not be distracted by what the ministry, business, or stay-at-home mom down the street is doing. Remain focused on God’s will for your life. Aim for the very best God has for you! Bigger is not always better and in many instances can be a hindrance to fulfilling your calling. Trust that God is sovereign and will accomplish all His purposes on the earth (Job 42:2).
May we be like the prophet Jeremiah who declared “Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You” (Jeremiah 32:17).