Answering the Call

How do I know if I am truly doing what God wants me to do? That’s an interesting question, and an important one. We could say that Jonah learned the hard way that he was definitely not doing what God wanted him to do; he got a free ride in an organic submarine. Still, I tend to believe that Jonah was kind of a special case. Lots of other people disobeyed God and didn’t get that kind of treatment.

Of course, there are a lot of other people that disobeyed God and got a number of warnings. King Saul was corrected by the prophet Samuel several times (1 Samuel 13:13, 1 Samuel 15:19) before God took his Spirit from Saul, and sent Saul an evil spirit to trouble him. Even then, Saul had opportunity to repent. In the Book of Acts, there was a young Christian named Simon that offered Peter cash for the ability to lay hands on people and have them receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Peter told Simon, “Thy money perish with thee, for thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.” Simon immediately asked Peter to pray for him, that it not turn out like that. Also in the Book of Acts, a couple named Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of land, and Ananias brought most of the money to the church, but told Peter that it was all of the money. Peter questioned him about it, and Ananias died. Now Ananias may not have had a very long time to repent of what he had done, but he did have some time. Sapphira got worried about her husband and came to the church looking for him. Now, the fact that Ananias hadn’t come home should have let her know that something was wrong, but, apparently, she didn’t have the first idea what was wrong. Peter asked her if the money that Ananias had brought was the whole amount from the sale of the land, giving her a chance to confess. She replied that it was, and she fell down dead. She had an opportunity to repent; she could have said, “No, I’ll go home and get the rest of it.” Or, “No, we had planned to give the whole amount, but we had some unexpected bills, so we kept some of the money to pay them.” Something like that would have kept her alive.

Still, most of the time that people disobey God, it isn’t nearly that dramatic. Sometimes we aren’t even aware that we are doing it. Hmmm, I could get a job working for the church, or I could get a job somewhere else making a lot more money so that I could give more to the church. Believe it or not, working for the church may not be the right answer; God may have someone else in mind for that position who wouldn’t get it if you took it. Just because something seems like what God would want you to do, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it really is what He wants you to do.

So, how do you know? Spend a lot of time in prayer; if you don’t feel that you have a clear answer, then lay a fleece before the Lord. Now, when I say to lay a fleece before the Lord, I don’t mean put a cloth out in the rain and tell God to keep it dry if He wants you to go on a mission trip to Africa. I mean, for example, there are several job openings that you feel that you are qualified for and so, you put in applications at each place, but then you pray, and you set aside an hour for listening to God and for listening for the phone. Whichever employer God wants you to work for, ask that He would have them call during that hour. If nobody calls, then maybe none of those jobs are right for you. On the other hand, if all of them call during that hour, then maybe God is less concerned with where you work, although He is certainly concerned about how you work, and what kind of example you set while you’re at work. You know you don’t have to go to Africa to be missionary; there is at least one person in every city, town, or village on every continent that needs to hear the Gospel. Christianity may have spread around the world, but we still haven’t reached all of the world.