The Calling

Most of my life I grew up hearing about God calling me and how it will change my life when I hear Him. I grew up waiting to hear this voice, and it never came. If you watch the TV show Manifest, the callings that they talk about reminds me of this sometimes. It made me question whether or not He was going to choose me. That maybe I was doing something wrong because I wasn’t hearing Him. At times it left me frustrated and defeated. Sometimes it deterred me from pursuing Him so much because nothing was happening. All that time He was trying I was just waiting for the wrong sign. It took me well into my late 20s to figure out that it doesn’t always have to be His voice that you wait for. He has other ways that He uses to try and reach us. So if you haven’t heard His voice hold tight.

For me the first time I truly felt God that I can remember happened when I was 29 years old. I had been praying for a specific thing for years and felt like I was getting nowhere and that peace was just something that was not going to happen… until it did. Let me tell you when I felt Him I have pursued that moment every day since. It was like I could finally breathe for the first time in my life. The feeling of peace overcame me, it was a moment that I will never forget. Sometimes our moments with Him are much like this. There have been other times where I can feel this nudge and it keeps coming up. If I ignore the nudge long enough, He has put people in my path to make me stop and realize what He is trying to show me. I have learned that it is not so much coincidence as it is God. He waits until you are ready, because a life lived for Him does not come without hard times and some sacrifice.

We have ourselves so wrapped up in our distractions and the noise of this world that we run from the quiet. It’s in these quite moments where He speaks to us. When we focus on just Him and His wisdom is when we open our ears and our eyes to what He wants us to see. The quiet is a hard place for me too sometimes. When you spend time in the quiet, it is amazing how refreshing it can be. Don’t be disappointed or discouraged if He doesn’t move in big ways either. He does everything in His time. He waits until your heart is ready for Him, because He truly knows our hearts and we can hide nothing from Him. When we pursue Him from our hearts and we receive what He grants us our lives are forever changed. The beauty that He can construct out of our brokenness is more beautiful than you can imagine.

If you are in a season of waiting spend this time pruning your heart, pruning your distractions. Make sure that you are in a place to be able to receive Him. When you get frustrated read His wisdom, because many times for me it has calmed my uneasy spirit. When you have lost hope turn to His word and read about Paul, Naomi or Ruth. We will all go through times of feeling hopeless and discouraged but He is always there. It takes an enormous amount of courage to survive in a non-believing world. Let His word give you the courage to face whatever it is that you are facing. He is stronger than anything you can encounter. Prune your heart so that when He answers you can let Him transform you.

XOXO

The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye if bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. Matthew 6:22-23