Knock knock...

Who's there?
God.
God who?

Isn't that how it goes all too often in our lives? God asks us to do something and we ignore Him or pretend we don't hear Him?

Maybe He's asking us to do something that is so uncomfortable, we think that we must not really be understanding His 'call' on our lives.

As much as we don't like it, and I've said this before, God will call us to do things for Him which are outside of our experience and our comfort zone.

Sometimes He even calls us to NOT follow the dream that we've aspired to our whole life.

The only real way to know if the calling you feel tugging at your spirit is from God or someone/something else is through the community of Christians around you and through the Bible.

Lets start with the Bible. God is not going to ask you to do something that is contrary to His word. The best way to discern this is to be familiar with Scripture. You cannot know God if you don't know His story as revealed to us in history through the Bible.

The other way to discern if the 'call' upon your life is from God is through having deep conversations about the subject with other Christians who know God and who know you.

When I was in seminary, I really wasn't sure if it was where I was supposed to be. I used to joke that I must have answered my 'neighbors' phone when I got the 'call' to go to seminary. I fought being ordained as a pastor. I tried every possible route to avoid it but God wouldn't let me. He continued to put people in my path who told me I was supposed to be a minister
until I couldn't avoid it anymore. I even had one person in my church tell me I was being 'Jonah' and I needed to turn around and head the direction God had told me to go.

I write all that to say that you can't always determine God's call on your life based on how you feel about it. God calls us to certain things because of who He has created us to be, not because of who we think we want to be.

Take some time this week to listen for God's call. You might be surprised at the door in your life that He is knocking upon.

Chesney Szaniszlo