Our calling is often found at the intersection of three indicators: Passion, Poverty, & Proficiency.
Having any single one of them alone doesn’t mean that’s your calling. Having two of them also doesn’t mean that’s your calling. Having all three of them also doesn’t guarantee that is your calling. These are only indicators, not absolutes.
Having said that, an overwhelming majority of the time, people’s callings would be found at the intersection of their Passions, Proficiency, and the Poverty (or needs) they see in the world. But this is not foolproof. The guaranteed way to know your calling as a Christian is a loving relationship with God, learning how to hear God, and then understanding the intersection of these three Ps. Of the three, love (god-glorifying passion) is the greatest indicator.
1) Passions. This refers to our God-glorifying passions – the desires of our hearts that glorify God. This is not just any passion but passions that we have which also glorify God. It doesn’t have to be about soul-winning or charitable work. It could have to do with playing a sport, working on a farm, driving a truck, building houses, flying planes, etc. This kind of passion is what Isaiah was having when he said: “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak any more in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.'”
What if you don’t feel this passion right now?
Don’t worry about it; keep pressing into God and growing spiritually. God must take your heart to a certain level of surrender and sensitivity to things that glorify him so that you start praying like Bob Pierce, World Vision’s founder: “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” When you start praying this and genuinely, from the bottom of your heart, mean it, then your deliverance is right around the corner. But you must still wait on the Lord for it. God is not in a rush. At the right time, he will give you his passions. Another way to say it is that God will give you a strong burden to do something for a particular group of people. That burden will be like a “fire shut up in your bones.” Trying to hold it in will make you weary; indeed, you couldn’t hold it in!
2) Poverty. This refers to poverty in the world around you. By poverty, I mean a need or lack in the world around us, the world’s needs. What prevailing needs to do you see? What needs do you see as most dire? That is, what needs burden your heart most? Note that poverty refers to the needs that you perceive and believe are the most important. They don’t have to be, as a matter of fact, the most important needs in the world. However, they have to indeed be significant needs that God and people care about.
Our calling often affects the way we view things. It affects the glasses or paradigms we wear to view the world. Somebody with a calling to care for orphans may see the orphan problem as the most important problem in the world, and his heart gets burdened about it. Someone with a calling to be a pastor or an evangelist may tend to see soul-winning as the most important need. That is what I call a calling bias. There is a calling bias to the way we see things. If you look at 1 Cor. 7:7, you will see an example of what I am talking about. Paul was given a special gift or “calling” to be celibate and contented to serve God as such. He writes, “I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” In the chapter, he correctly advises that people shouldn’t marry if they could serve without marriage. With this gift or calling to celibacy, he could see clearly and wished that everybody were single and focused on serving God. People who don’t have that gift have a hard time being able to do that or see that as extremely important.
3) Proficiency. What are you proficient in? What are your strengths? What are you really good at? I see strengths as the interworking of:
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- Talents (natural abilities),
- Spiritual gifts (if born again),
- Personality,
- Experiences that have formed us,
- Skills–also acquired as part of our experiences.
Our Heart’s desire (passions), discussed above, fuels the learning process that leads to the development of proficiency. As such, at the core of proficiency, we see SHAPE, which stands for Spiritual gifts, Heart (passions), Abilities (talents), Personality, and Experiences. If a person is not a Christian, spiritual gifts would not be considered, but everything else would be.
Talents are innate, and God designed each of us with talents that match our calling. That’s expected from a rational God. Spiritual gifts are given when we are born again to equip us to do God’s will–they also would be expected to align with our calling. The same is true for our personalities, passions, and experiences. They are indicators of what God wants us to do with our lives. Together, they make us proficient in the area of our calling.
How do these work together to produce proficiency?
Take a soccer example. Talent could be the ability to look at the goalpost, dribble, and change directions multiple times and still, without looking, tell which direction the goalpost was so that one can take a good shot on target. Many people would lose their sense of direction. Talent could also be the ability to kick the ball and hit the target without much practice. Endurance and height could be talents. Skill comes from being coached by a good coach. Before every game, players often watch videos of the other team to gain knowledge and understanding of how they play. Applying all these three produces strength.
With calling, God often calls before he prepares. So, when looking at proficiency, it’s not always a matter of asking, “Are you proficient at it now?” but “Would you be proficient at this?” When God called David and Joseph and a host of others, they weren’t proficient in the area of their calling. But they had the seeds that it takes to grow the tree of proficiency; they had hidden talents. Plus, the Holy Spirit can give gifts to people the moment he gives them an assignment.
These three Ps are extremely helpful and effective most of the time. However, the guaranteed way to know your call is through a relationship with Christ, plus an understanding of these three Ps.
What is the difference between a talent and a strength? (Gallup)
“A strength is the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific activity. Talents are naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. Talents, knowledge, and skills — along with the time spent (i.e., investment) practicing, developing your skills, and building your knowledge base — combine to create your strengths.
For example, being drawn toward strangers and enjoying the challenge of making a connection with them are talents (from the Woo theme), whereas the ability to consistently build a network of supporters who know you and are prepared to help you is a strength. To build this strength, you have refined your talents with skills and knowledge. Likewise, the tendency to confront others is a talent (from the Command theme), whereas the ability to sell successfully is a strength. To persuade others to buy your product, you must have combined your talent with product knowledge and certain selling skills.
Although talents, skills, and knowledge are each important for building a strength, talent is always the most important. The reason is that your talents are innate and cannot be acquired, unlike skills and knowledge. For example, as a salesperson you can learn your products’ features (knowledge), you can be trained to ask the right open-ended questions (a skill), and you can practice making a sale (investment). However, the innate tendency to push a customer to commit at exactly the right moment, in exactly the right way must be naturally occurring and cannot be learned.
The key to building a fully developed strength is to identify your most dominant talents, which are likely found within your top five themes, then complement them with acquired knowledge, skills, and investment.”
http://strengths.gallup.com/help/general/125543/difference-talent-strength.aspx Accessed on 4/16/14
Two secondary Ps
As you seek to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit and consider the three Ps above to narrow your options of what God wants you to do with your life, two other Ps can help guide you in making choices about how you go after it.
- Priorities of God – Your passions must align with God’s priorities.
- Profitability – Read 1 Corinthians 9:7-14 A worker is worth his wages. ( 1 Tim. 5:18)
