Category Archives: Life Calling

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Are You too Busy to Hear What God Wants Next?

6 Truths We Must Believe to Restore Limits in our Lives

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One reason we struggle to discover God’s direction for our lives — a reason we seldom talk about — is that we are trying to do too much. We’re so overloaded and over-committed that we’re not able to listen for what God wants next with the faith of a child.

The purpose of this blog is to help you live an authentic life. To do that, I have to be authentic about my journey.

And right now, I am overloaded.

Combine a book launch with a few delays on other key projects and my tendency to be over-committed and you have the perfect example of trying to cram too much into too little time. It’s all really good, Kingdom-advancing stuff. But I confess I’m struggling to make my problems line up for me, a John Maxwell principle I’ve always tried to live by.

I had a vivid dream the other night that served as a not so-subtle reminder of what happens when I try to do it all.

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Do You Make This Common Mistake in Your FaithWalk?

Why Waiting for Certainty Could Take a While

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I would prefer to know how life will turn out before I choose my next step. If you’re like me, it’s easy to make a common mistake in pursuit of a life that is pleasing to God.

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be unpacking the process of knowing God’s will for your life in a series of posts on the topic. I get questions from readers all the time who are trying to figure out what God wants them to do next.

My free eBook What God Wants You to Do Next: 7 Questions to Discover God’s Best for Your Life has been downloaded by people all over the world, so I know trying to figure out God’s direction is a common experience no matter where you live. I’ve heard from new friends as close as Atlanta and as far away as New Guinea and Ghana asking for advice on how to tell the difference between what God wants and what I want.

Although there is more to unpack in answering this question–something I’ll be doing in a series of posts coming soon–we need to be careful not to make a common mistake when asking this question and others about finding our life direction.

We should not assume we can ever reach a place in this life where we are free from uncertainty about what God wants us to do next.

The Apostle Paul describes our journey as a faith-walk, not a sight-walk. It’s not a historical tour complete with gripping narration, bronze plaques, and souvenir shops. It is a dynamic journey into the unknown with the One who knows and sustains all things.

The Christian walk is not a documentary filmed after the fact. It is an ongoing process which requires us to depend on God for direction as it unfolds in real time. Someday we’ll have the luxury of hindsight, but not now.

We make a mistake if we expect the Christian walk to be anything other than an exercise in ever-increasing dependence on God. Not only is uncertainty not abnormal, it is the expected way of life for all who follow Christ. We live in tension between what is already accomplished and what is being accomplished, between what is and what is to come.

“Though the outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16) A metamorphosis is taking place within us. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that the process may become uncomfortable at times. In fact, we should expect it.

Remember this: Faith itself is a temporary thing. “For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) One day faith will give way to sight, and all uncertainty will cease. Until then, the process is working something far greater within us, causing us to lean into our Savior for direction and guidance as we walk paths we’ve never known before.

By all means, seek clarity from God, but don’t let uncertainty stop you from moving forward. Get used to saying, I don’t know all the answers, but I’m taking the next step anyway. 

Embrace uncertainty as an opportunity to discover greater clarity about what matters most. And your story will become better for it. 

Embrace uncertainty as an opportunity to discover greater clarity about what matters most.

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SPECIAL: I’d love your input for the series of posts and additional resources I am preparing to help you discover what God wants you to do next. If you are not already an email subscriber, click here to do so now and be included in a brief survey I’ll send your way. Thanks!

Question: Do you sometimes make the mistake of thinking your uncertainty is weird or not normal for a Christ follower? How might your present uncertainty be an opportunity for you to grow closer to God? Share your thoughts by clicking here.

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The Myth of the Minor League Christian

Are You in the Game or Tailgating in the Parking Lot?

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When I first stepped out by faith to pursue God’s call to write, I heard many people say, “That calling is not for everyone,” as if the call to follow Christ on a faith adventure were reserved only for the Christian elite—not the rest of us who should “bloom where we’re planted” in the Christian minor leagues.

You can discover more of my story and the resistance I encountered in my book A Story Worth Telling. But the idea that there are two classes of Christ followers—the Major and Minor Leagues of Christianity—is not new.

The Apostle Paul addressed this urge to create an upper class of Christians when he said, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (1 Corinthians 3:5-6) The Church unintentionally reinforced this thinking with the idea of sainthood, setting up icons to commemorate ordinary Christians doing what God had called them to do. And for many centuries, everyone knew the best Christians, those most serious about following Christ, secluded themselves in monasteries. The major league faith took place behind those walls, while the rest of the rabble settled for being minor league disciples.

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Do You Have What It Takes to Be A Hero?

5 Key Questions to Identify Your Core Beliefs

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Sacrifice. It’s not a popular word. It never has been and probably never will be. But to those who desire an authentic life, the kind of life that produces a story worth telling, sacrifice must become a way of life. Faith is the stuff heroes are made of.

This past weekend in America, we celebrated Memorial Day. We set aside a day to remember the fallen, those brave men and woman who served in our Armed Forces and gave their last measure of full devotion — but why did they do it?

I would suggest most did it because of what they believed to be true, most definitely in spite of what they saw, sensed, or felt. For readers of my new book A Story Worth Telling, that explanation should sound familiar — it is the very definition of faith.

Special Alert! Guest Post with Ron Edmondson Today

I am privileged to have a guest post featured with Ron Edmondson today at his stellar blog where he shares his thoughts on leadership, church, and culture.

Ron is one of the leading bloggers on pastors, leadership, and church issues — and truly great guy.

Check out my post and share it if you think it has value:

Ten Things to Know before Pursuing a New Life Calling

And to those visiting FaithWalkers for the first time from Ron’s site, welcome!

I invite you to claim a free chapter from my new book releasing everywhere in just a few hours!

Click here to claim a free chapter of A Story Worth Telling and find out how to get faith-building resources valued at $284

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5 Common Responses to a Faith Challenge

Which Way Do You Choose When the Going Gets Tough?

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It’s been said that when the going gets tough the tough get going. But let’s face it: it’s easy to say we believe until we face a faith challenge.

Only when we face a challenge do we discover what our faith is made of. Only then do we realize that growing our faith will take some work.

It might help to think of our faith challenge as a growth curve. When we first begin to step out by faith and test both ourselves and God, we’ll meet resistance.

Resistance doesn’t mean right or wrong, it just means we’re moving in a new direction. Easy doesn’t mean we have God’s green light. In fact, if we’re trying to grow our faith in response to a faith challenge, we should expect it to be difficult at first, especially early in the curve.

When I first started on the path to becoming a professional writer, nothing was easy. I mean nothing.

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What Writing a Book Taught Me

6 Lessons I Learned from Writing a Book about Faith

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I had always dreamed of writing a book. I know, some of you are thinking, I have that same dream while others are thinking, Who needs yet another book?

I empathize with both of you, actually. Now that I’ve written several books, both by myself and with others, the process isn’t nearly as mysterious as it once was. But it is not an easy task — at least not to write something someone will find worth reading.

Along this journey to write A Story Worth Telling: Your Field Guide to Living an Authentic Life, I examined every passage of Scripture referencing faith, belief, or trust. You name it, I’ve probably dismantled it.

And then to tackle such a topic that people much smarter than me have written about for centuries — well, it was a bit intimidating at times.

But the greater challenge was managing my time.

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Do You Still Dare to Dream?

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Every child has a dream of someday doing something they were born to do. For some, it may be playing baseball, becoming President of the United States, or even an astronaut. But dreams can be scary things.

My dream was to become a writer. I didn’t always dare to follow that dream.

I tried. Shortly after my wife and I married, I left my job in retail with the aim of writing a novel that had been on the back burner. I made it about mid-way through before being absorbed by other pursuits. Good pursuits. Pastoring a church, in fact.

And so the dream got set aside.

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To All Those Who Want Their Story to Matter

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Someday, you will tell your story. You may tell it here and now in this life or there and then in your next season of existence, after you have “shuffled off this mortal coil.” But it’s going to happen. The question is: will your story be worth telling?

Whether or not your story will be a good one will depend on one thing – your faith.

I don’t mean your commitment to organized religion or your ability to describe a conversion experience in vivid detail. We Christians are good at assuming our story will be good because we once said a prayer to secure a spot in heaven someday. I’m not talking about fire insurance.

I’m talking about faith – doing what you believe to be true, often in spite of what you see, sense, or feel. Faith is what writes your story and determines whether it will be a story worth telling.

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The Greatest Risk You Face Right Now

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What if the greatest risk you face isn’t what you think?

If we listed our current top five fears (or does concerns sound like more acceptable Christianeze?), I suspect most of us would have lists like this:

  • Will I have enough money?
  • Will that relationship work out?
  • Will I find healing for this physical body I’m stuck with?
  • Will the right people like and accept me?
  • Will anyone find out that I’m actually an idiot?

Well, maybe some of us don’t worry about that last one as much as we should. But the reality is this: all but one of those fears is already in the process of fading away. The Apostle Paul said it best:

The things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18

For FaithWalkers, only relationships will last beyond our brief tour of this earth. And even those often come and go throughout our brief stay. How many of us lived our high school and college years consumed with what our peers thought of us – only to seldom, if ever, see them once we passed that season of life?