Question #1: What is God Calling You To Do?
The key question derived from the first soil is this: What is God calling you to do? To create a better future today requires that we have an open mind - to become receptive to what the One who created us has created us to do and to become.
You need to avoid coming to closure too soon on who God is in your life (if you are still figuring out what you believe) or what God wants to do in your life. You and I need to be open-minded in both the Big Picture and in the next steps.
Are you truly receptive to what God wants in your life?
God speaks. The problem is often we are not listening.
Every Christ-follower naturally should hear His voice. Jesus once said: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” – John 10:27
Now, I have never heard God’s voice audibly, but I have heard Him speak to me through the Scriptures, through prayer, through conversations with others, through a message on a Sunday morning, through music on the radio, and even as a still small voice.
We can know if He is speaking to us with the following framework: The difference between His thoughts and my thoughts are that His thoughts are selfless, require courage, and consistent with His character.
Sometimes, God invites us to do things we do not want to do. As a result, we do not hear Him speak because we are ignoring Him. Either we are afraid to trust Him, we don’t want to do what He wants us to do, or we don’t want to stop doing what we are doing because we like it!
I’ve been there. My wife, kids, and extended family all wanted us to live in Texas. My wife Deborah and I both grew up in Texas. All of our family is there. After 15 years on the West Coast, they all wanted us to move. There was only one person standing in the way – me. I didn’t want to leave Los Angeles. I liked what I was doing and where we were living.
At a family get-together at my grandmother's house, I heard my mom, my aunt who lives in Austin, my wife, and my daughter all talking about how they were praying we would move to Texas. That was the final straw for me! I was so frustrated with them. They were praying something would happen in my life that I did not want to happen!
As we drove back to Los Angeles, Deborah and I spent those three days talking about our future. It was on that trip, I agreed to at least pray and ask God what He wanted us to do – something I had been resistant to do.
On the day I was supposed to begin praying about whether we should stay in LA or move to Texas, I decided to go to the gym. (This in itself was a miracle. I rarely ever went to the gym). As I walked in, I noticed how loud the music seemed to be that early in the morning. In spite of that, I prayed quietly in my mind: “God, just guide me to know where you want us to live – where you want us to serve you.” It was at that moment that I heard a song with the following lyrics:
“Come back to Texas
It’s just not the same since you went away
Before you lose your accent
And forget all about the Lone Star State
There’s a seat for you at the rodeo
And I’ve got every slow dance saved
Besides the Mexican food sucks north of here anyway”
It was a song I had never heard before and never heard on the radio since. I later discovered it was the same guys who sing the theme song to the cartoon Phineas and Ferb, a band called Bowling for Soup. The name of the song is “(Ohio) Come Back to Texas.”
Honestly I was a bit freaked out – so much so that when I got on the treadmill and noticed that ESPN was showing highlights from a Little League game with California versus Texas, I just couldn’t take it anymore. In that moment, I told God: “This is too much for me. Just make it clear where we are supposed to go. Whoever wins this game is where we will live!” Then the Texas team won.
Then after several amazing events and crazy circumstances that seemed to confirm a move, my wife changed her mind and didn’t want to move. Crisis averted!
A year later, I started thinking we were supposed to be moving. Strange things started happening again so I initiated the possibility with Deborah. One moment in particular came when I was reading from Ezekiel a passage that sounded exactly like Texas:
“I am sending you to an obstinate and stubborn people…. You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language…. Go now to your countrymen….” – Ezekiel 2-3
Doesn’t that sound like Texas?! A stubborn and obstinate people?! I am a Texan and these words certainly described me. “Countrymen?!” What other state in America thinks of itself as its own country?
So much more happened that I don’t have time to share, but the adventure of moving to Austin and serving as part of Gateway brought us closer to God and closer to each other.
WATCH VIDEO: Come Back To Texas
Having trouble with the video? Watch it here.
So often we resist uncertainty – the very thing God uses to build up our faith!
Consider and answer the following:
For more on hearing God’s voice, visit “How We Knew To Move (Hearing God’s Voice)” and read the Becoming Receptive Snippet (coming 7/16/14!).