Friday, August 21, 2009

What Is Your Purpose or Calling?

by Donna L. Watkins

We are born into this earth to seek fellowship with God and follow His direction. The world has become a speedy and noisy place. There is still enough wilderness and parks and gardens and oceans and places that turn our hearts and soul back to God, the Creator of it all. Those are the places we can truly feel the ebb and flow our the Holy Spirit and more clearly hear the voice of God.

© 2009 Donna L. Watkins - Randal in Our Garden, My Gentle Gardener

It will take more than a dropping by for an hour, hoping to gather up the volumes of information God has wanted to pour into your Spirit for a long time. It takes a commitment of priorities. Making God first in your life doesn't come easy, but it comes with great reward when you do.

Smith Wigglesworth says, "I have been speaking to this end: that you may see the calling that Paul was speaking about - humility of mind, meekness of spirit, knowing that God is in you and through you, knowing that the power of the Spirit is mightily bringing you to the place where not only the gifts of the Spirit, but also the gifts of Christ have been given to you, making you eligible for the great work you have to do."

Our heart's desire should be to obey the greatest commandment, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV).

We spend our time in many ways ... and it's not that the Lord doesn't want us to have recreation, and He commands us to work ... so we're not talking about becoming a fixture in a chapel. But we can load our days up with many things trying to seek fulfillment from doing and accomplishing and accumulating, that we don't have time for the one thing that will give us the very fulfillment we were created for. Without God filling that "secret place" of your heart and soul, nothing else is going to satisfy.

Wigglesworth says, "Oh, to be alone with God, to get His mind, His thoughts, and His impression and revelation of the need of the people." Randal and I just finished reading the book, "George Washington Carver, The Man Who Overcame," and it was such an inspiration to me.

Carver said, "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." He faithfully met with God at 4 AM every morning in the woods. There he received all the inspiration for the many scientific discoveries he made. He stayed focused on his calling. He wanted to help his people (the freed negroes of his day) to be able to survive on their own, and he did it through farming.

Rising from slavery to become one of the world's most respected and honored men, he devoted his life to understanding nature and the many uses for the simplest of plant life. He is best known for developing crop-rotation methods and discovering hundreds of new uses for crops. The amount of things he accomplished in a day is beyond what can be imagined. He had the ability to focus and was not at all enamored with fame or fortune, although presidents and kings around the world sought his help.

Carver's question when he met daily with God was always, "what do you want me to do today?" He didn't rattle off his own troubles and prayer requests, he met with God to get his daily agenda for what He wanted to do through Carver's mind and hands, and Carver certainly made the world a better place through all of it.

What could we accomplish if we gave God an hour a day to speak to us. How many hours and days would it take for us to learn to shut down the chatter from the left side of our brains where all the details, lists, records and agendas of our mind reside? Until we can turn off our own thoughts, we can't tune into God's thoughts, which will always be beyond ours because in the Bible He says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord" (Is. 55:8). So we must discipline ourselves to listen. "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10).

I believe we don't take time to meet and listen to God because we don't know how. I didn't think that last year, but since Randal and I are going through the workbook, "How To Hear God's Voice," I realize how much time I spent every morning in my "quiet time" adding more and more knowledge without wisdom on how to use it.

This workbook is very detailed for the logical brain to understand why it's more important not to rely on our own thoughts. It instructs how to tune into God's voice and journal what He is saying to you. You can read or listen to the four keys to hearing God's voice on the author's ministry website. "

Randal is very left-brained and analytical and sequential and a step-by-step person. He has received so much wisdom since he's learned the techniques to hear God more clearly. I'm very excited also since we are both getting clearer direction and timing on the things that matter most to us. It has also increased our faith because through it all, your love for God is strengthened because He shows His love to us when He speaks to us in words of endearment.

In John 7:38 Jesus tells us, "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to bring us revelation and understanding of things. Obviously all things are not in the Bible. Many families send their children to Sunday School and many of us accepted Christ into our hearts in Sunday School, but Sunday School is not mentioned in the Bible. Neither is sending your children to public school. And what about the Trinity? It's not mentioned one time, but our faith is based on it.

Jesus told us in John 16:12-14, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come."

Knowing The Word is crucial because we have to line up what we hear with the Word and also with mentors we choose to confirm our journaling. We can easily get off into writing from our own brains and not from what God is telling us, so there needs to always be a check and balance.

If you aren't living your life with the passion and purpose that God has you here for, pause! Consider your days and whether you are satisfied with the relationship you have with our Father. There is always more because there is no end to what God can pour into us if we are willing, as George Washington Carver was.

Related Article: Hearing God's Voice

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© 2009 Donna L. Watkins - This article was reprinted with permission from TheNatureInUs.com.
The link URL is: http://www.TheNatureInUs.com

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