Discover Your Calling and Building a Spiritual Legacy
Discerning God’s will is about more than just finding answers for our personal concerns; it reveals His redemptive and loving purpose for all of mankind. Through prayer, reading Scripture, and cultivating a heart of humility, we gain insight into God’s overarching desire—that none should perish but that everyone would come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). At the same time, we discover the specific ways He intends to use our gifts and experiences for His glory.
As we align our lives with God’s broader plan, we become more attuned to the Holy Spirit’s guidance for our individual callings. This alignment illuminates our path forward, offering clarity and assurance about the next steps in our journey. By embracing God’s will for both the global Church and our unique place within it, we experience the peace and confidence that come from walking in step with His loving purpose.
Surrendering Our Plans to God’s Direction
It’s natural for us to create our own roadmaps in life—complete with detailed goals, timelines, and personal dreams. Sometimes, we approach God with these plans, hoping He’ll simply rubber-stamp our desires. We might pray, “Lord, bless this idea I’ve already decided on,” or “Here’s my dream—make it happen,” essentially expecting Him to conform to our agenda. Yet this approach is like trying to redirect a mighty river instead of letting its current determine our path. When we insist on charting our own course, we risk missing God’s best for us.
His perspective is infinitely greater than our own, and He sees the destination in ways we never can. True surrender means bringing our hopes before Him with open hands, inviting Him to refine or even replace them with something far better than we ever imagined. By allowing God’s current to guide us, we experience a peace that emerges from aligning our plans with His will, rather than struggling in our own limited strength.
In order to discover what your calling is, you must first truly submit to God, choosing His way rather than your own. This submission goes beyond a one-time decision; it’s a daily posture of surrender that acknowledges God as Lord over every part of your life. When you commit to trusting His purposes and timing—even when you don’t fully understand—He begins to reveal pieces of the larger plan He has in store.
Submission isn’t about losing your identity or becoming passive; rather, it’s the key to unlocking the unique vision God has designed just for you. As you lay down your own agenda, you free yourself to receive divine guidance, noticing doors that God opens and feeling stirred by the Holy Spirit’s quiet promptings. It’s in that position of yielded trust that your calling starts to unfold, confirming that God’s ways are not only higher but also best.
Putting God’s Desires First to Discover Your Calling
God, in His infinite knowledge, already understands the path He has laid out for you. However, walking in that calling requires you to place His desires above your own. This act of surrender involves recognizing that His plans surpass any vision you could draft for yourself. When you yield your ambitions and invite God to direct your heart, you open the door for Him to reveal what He has been preparing all along.
In doing so, you become willing to let go of lesser goals in exchange for His eternal purposes. Over time, you’ll notice how God aligns your interests and abilities with Kingdom priorities, granting you clarity and passion for the work He’s assigned to you. As you continue to prioritize His will, you’ll find that discovering your calling becomes less about striving and more about trusting the One who designed you for a specific, glorious purpose.
God’s calling for your life isn’t always a single, unchanging role. It can take different forms depending on the season you’re in—some callings might only last a day, while others stretch over months, years, or even a lifetime. This truth encourages us to remain open and adaptable, listening closely to the Holy Spirit’s direction as we journey through various phases of life.
By staying in tune with God’s leading through prayer, worship, and Scripture, you’ll find that He may invite you into short-term assignments just as readily as He entrusts you with long-term missions. Each calling, whether temporary or enduring, contributes to God’s larger story for your life and can be a stepping stone to greater service in His kingdom. When you embrace the evolving nature of God’s call, you discover a life rich with divine purpose, guided by the One who orchestrates every season for His glory.
Ask, Believe, and Act: No Room for Doubt
James 1:5-7 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
When Scripture says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God,” it also instructs us to ask in faith, without doubting. The same principle applies when seeking clarity about God’s calling: once He reveals His direction, we must receive it with unwavering trust and put it into action. Doubt not only undermines our confidence, but it can also cause us to hesitate or abandon God-given assignments.
Believing wholeheartedly that God’s plan is both true and good is the key to walking forward boldly. As you step out in faith, you’ll find that obedience becomes more natural, and blessings follow in ways you might not have imagined. Trusting God’s word over your worries allows Him to shape your path, using your obedience to fulfill a greater purpose than you could ever design on your own.
When seeking God’s will, it’s vital to prepare your heart to receive whatever He reveals. If you ask for direction but secretly refuse to accept an unexpected or challenging answer, your faith is divided, and James 1:6 warns that such double-mindedness leaves you “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” You may already have your own vision of how God should use you, or you might fear you can’t handle the responsibility if He calls you to something greater than you imagined.
Either way, doubt keeps you from fully submitting to His perfect plan. True surrender means letting go of preconceived ideas and trusting that God’s ways are always best, even when they differ from your own. By setting aside personal desires and choosing faith over fear, you create fertile ground for God’s answer to take root and flourish, leading you confidently into the calling He has prepared for you.
Obedience: The Key to Moving Forward
James 1:22-25 Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it-not forgetting what they have heard but doing it-they will be blessed in what they do.
When you earnestly seek God’s guidance and He reveals His will, the next vital step is to act on that revelation. Delaying or disregarding what He has shown you can create a spiritual stalemate—your prayers may seem unanswered, and you might struggle to hear His voice again. God honors obedience; when you ignore or postpone the calling He places on your heart, you risk stalling the very growth and blessings you’ve been praying for.
It’s not that God withholds good things from you arbitrarily; rather, He desires your partnership and willingness to follow through. Once you’ve asked for wisdom or clarity and God has answered, your response in faith sets the stage for further breakthroughs. By stepping forward into what He’s revealed—no matter how daunting—it signals your trust, ignites spiritual momentum, and opens the door for God to continue working powerfully in your life.
The Heart of the Matter: Evaluating Our Motives
James 4:2-3 You desire but you do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
The motive behind our desires plays a crucial role in determining whether our requests align with God’s will or simply serve our own interests. Scripture reminds us that God looks at the heart seeing beyond our words and actions to the deeper intentions fueling them. When our prayers or aspirations center purely on personal gain, we risk straying from the loving and selfless nature that God calls us to embody.
On the other hand, if our requests flow from a sincere desire to honor the Lord, bless others, or further His kingdom, we position ourselves to receive in accordance with His perfect plans. By regularly evaluating our motives, we open our hearts to God’s refining work, ensuring that our desires and actions increasingly mirror His love and purpose for us and for those around us.
Trusting God Over Mammon
Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon (whatever you get your security, happiness, fulfillment from: material wealth, possessions, job security).
When we seek God’s revelation about our calling but still try to maintain our own backup plan for security, we’re effectively placing our trust in worldly provision—often symbolized by Mammon—rather than in God. This divided trust reveals that we believe our personal strategies or material resources can safeguard us better than our Creator can.
Yet Scripture teaches that wholehearted reliance on God is essential for a flourishing relationship with Him. Clinging to a security plan built on human wisdom not only diminishes our faith in God but also hinders us from fully embracing the calling He has designed. By choosing to relinquish our self-made safety nets, we affirm that God alone is our provider and protector, ready to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine.
Ecclesiastes 11:5 As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.
When we obsess over every tiny detail of our lives—constantly trying to chart our own future—we slip into a mindset where we prioritize our own control over God’s sovereignty. In doing so, we make the subtle choice to trust our limited human understanding rather than placing our confidence in the One who sees the entire picture. Yes, it’s wise to be diligent and plan responsibly, but clinging too tightly to our own expectations can block God’s plans from unfolding in a natural, Spirit-led way.
Instead of frantically mapping out every contingency, we honor God by surrendering our worries, admitting our dependence on Him, and believing that His ways are higher than ours. Ultimately, trusting in God over ourselves opens the door for peace, clarity, and divine guidance—far surpassing anything we could achieve through our own efforts.
Rather than fixating on personal plans, devote yourself so fully to reflecting Jesus’ character that your own ambitions fade into the background. Make His compassion, humility, and sacrificial love the heartbeat of your daily life. Let your actions and words point others to Him, showcasing the transforming power of the gospel. When you’re consumed by loving people as Jesus does—serving without expecting anything in return and extending grace wherever you go—you naturally loosen your grip on self-centered goals.
In this posture of complete surrender, God is glorified through every aspect of your life, and He faithfully takes care of your needs. Over time, as you abide in His presence, He will reveal your next steps and calling—often in ways that exceed anything you could have planned for yourself. By placing the pursuit of God’s kingdom above all else, you become a living testimony that He truly provides everything we need in His perfect timing.
Leaving a Spiritual Legacy
Proverbs 13:22 A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.
When we finally grasp what it means to walk in God’s calling and submit our plans to Him, we cultivate godly values, wisdom, and habits that can be passed on to future generations. This spiritual inheritance is infinitely more valuable than money—our children and grandchildren benefit from seeing a life lived by faith, marked by integrity, and guided by the Holy Spirit’s wisdom.
In turn, they learn to build their own relationships with God, equipped to face life’s challenges grounded in a firm foundation of biblical truth. By intentionally investing in our spiritual health and modeling Christlikeness, we leave behind a heritage that blesses our descendants far beyond anything money could ever buy.