Find Your Stride

Intro:

This week, in our series I want to share with you about finding your stride.

The Story:

While on the hunt Marcus and I, had a funny moment when he started bashing the length of His stride. We were headed back to the truck, and I began to open up my stride to cover some ground quicker.

As we went, their started to be a sizeable gap in-between us. When we got back to the truck he was laughing hysterically because he said it was like a kid trying to keep up with his dad. He said he stopped trying to keep up and simply found his stride. End result we both made it back to the truck.

The ensuing conversation after we finished laughing was simply that he didn’t need to walk my pace, but his own. After the Lord began to speak to me about finding our stride.

The plan of God for our lives requires us to find our individual stride and learn to walk in step with the Holy Spirit to accomplish it.

One of the greatest challenges to this is that we many times attempt to define and discern God’s call on our lives by comparison with others.

Today, I want to talk with you about how to discover God’s call on your life.

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Submit:

You don't discover God's calling by comparing your life to someone else's; you discover it by pursuing God, becoming who He created you to be, recognizing how He has gifted you, and faithfully following where He leads.

A foundational verse to help us understand this is Ephesians 2:10.

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

God has prepared beforehand good works that we are created to do in Christ Jesus. I want you to notice the word workmanship. That word in the Greek carries the sense of something crafted or shaped. Which means you are not random but created and formed by design.

You possess inherent worth as God’s intentional creation, and He has equipped you for purpose. The question we must learn to ask is not what am I supposed to do, but God who am I supposed to become?

The call of God is not a destination, a job, position, title, or a ministry assignment. It simply begins with who you are in Christ. Why? Your career, location, relationships, circumstances, and responsibilities can change, but your identity in Christ does not.

Identity will always precede assignment because in Christ you are not what you do, but who He has created you to be. So, the key question is not what am I called to do, it is who am I supposed to become and how does God want to use it?

Discovering your calling requires intimacy with God. John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Calling isn't primarily discovered through information. It is discovered through relationship and it deepens as you spend time with Him. Being precedes doing; communion precedes commissioning.

Before Jesus sent the disciples, He called them to Himself. Being with Jesus came before doing for Jesus. That's important to understand.

Don't chase a calling. Chase Jesus. Learn to ask God, who do you want me to become? What are you teaching me in this season? Where are you leading me? What are you asking me to obey?

The reality is the closer you get to the Caller, the clearer the calling becomes.

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Apply:

As you spend time with God, you will begin to recognize how He has wired you.

1 Corinthians 12:4–6 “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.”

There are different gifts, ministries, and activities, but it is the same Spirit that works in them all. As you begin to seek who you are supposed to become there are several things to begin to pay attention to:

Your gifts (what you naturally do well).

Your passions (what do you care deeply about?)

Your experiences (what have you walked through?)

Your skills (what have you learned to do?)

Your personality (how has God wired you to interact with people and circumstances?)

Your burdens (what problems bother you enough that you want to do something about them?)

Your pain (what have you experienced that may become a ministry to someone else?)

Your gifts don't automatically tell you or define your calling, but they do give you clues and reveal the direction of your calling.

For example: Growing up I have always found myself in positions of leadership. On sports teams, in choir, at work, even as volunteer in ministry early on. None of these specifically defined my calling but they revealed what God had placed on the inside of me.

Along with gifts, something else to pay attention to is what breaks your heart. Sometimes the seed of your calling is found inside the thing that bothers you.

What makes you angry? What injustice bothers you? What kind of person do you instinctively want to help? What problem do you keep noticing? What need do you wish somebody would address? What kind of people do you naturally find yourself drawn toward?

Nehemiah is a great biblical example. Nehemiah hears about the condition of Jerusalem. He doesn't simply receive information. It breaks his heart, and His burden becomes part of his assignment.

Like Nehemiah, your burden may reveal your assignment.

The things God has allowed you to experience may become part of how He wants to use you. Your pain doesn't have to be wasted. Your story doesn't have to be wasted. Your mistakes don't have to be wasted. Your experiences don't have to be wasted.

God can take what you walked through and use it to help somebody else walk through it.

A prime example of this is a lady named Jane Christiansen. When her daughter was in high school she was abducted and ultimately trafficked. Although she went to the authorities they couldn’t prove it and said there was nothing they could do. For years, she didn’t know if here daughter was living.

In the midst of it all, God called her to rescue others who have been trafficked. For the past two decades she has helped rescue and restore hundreds of children. We have supported her ministry many times as a church. God called her to the very place where she experienced her deepest pain.

Now, with this example let also say that calling may not be attached to every painful experience but it can always add value in ministering to others.

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Closing:

A few final thoughts about finding your stride and calling:

Avoid the comparison trap. Galatians 6:4–5

Galatians 6:4-5“But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load.”

Don’t worry about what God is doing in someone else’s life. You cannot fulfill your calling and run your race while trying to imitate someone else.

Let the word of God shape your discernment. Romans 12:2

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

God’s will isn’t primarily discovered through feelings, emotions, circumstances, random signs, or someone else’s opinions. They may sometimes provide context, but they will never replace God’s word. Scripture shapes your ability to discern.

Hebrews 5:14 connects spiritual maturity with having your senses trained to discern good and evil by reason of use. You don't become better at discerning God's will simply by becoming older. You become better at discerning God's will by becoming more spiritually mature.

Obey what God has already shown you. Proverbs 3:5-6.

Proverbs 3:5–6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”

Calling is often discovered through obedience. Obey what He has put in front of you today. Take that step and then tomorrow take another step of obedience. God often reveals the next step before the entire path.

Involve Godly people while learning to discern. You don't have to discover your calling alone. Proverbs 20:5

Proverbs 20:5“Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, But a man of understanding will draw it out.”

Friends, mentors, coaches, and intentional discipleship are important parts of the discernment process. God can use people who know you well to see things about you that you don’t see yourself.

You can ask questions like: What do you see in me? Where do you seem me being most effective? What gifts do you see in my life? What do people naturally come to me for? Where have you seen God use me?

A key help in this: Sometimes other people can see your calling before you can articulate it.

Calling becomes clearer in motion. You don’t discover your stride standing still. Start serving before you have everything figured out. Serve where you are. Serve people, help people, love people well, give, encourage, lead, teach, build, invite, pray, and disciple others.

What you find is that you serve others, you will often find where God seems to use you often.

Learn to be like the boy who offered up his two fish and five loaves. It may not have seemed like much, but God used it for great things.

Let’s pray!

Lord help us to lean into the process.

Salvation.