What is Your Calling

What is your calling? If you are like me this is a question you may have pondered on periodically throughout your life. Am I doing what I’ve been called to do? I am using my tools, talents, and gifts that God have given me correctly? Am I reaching the right people? Am I reaching enough people? Do you want me to sell everything and go be a missionary in Africa, or what do you want me to do? We are often confused on what God’s calling for our lives is.
Often while I was rodeoing, I questioned myself if I was doing all that I was called to do. Was I doing enough? Was I walking in God’s will for my life? The closer I grew to God the more I wondered. The more I read my bible the more I questioned if I needed to sell all my stuff at home and go be a missionary in Africa or start a church and become a preacher. Many times, I wondered if I was doing enough for the kingdom and always felt like I should be doing something more for the Lord.
After my wreck in 2018, I started questioning again. What do you want me to do Lord? What is your will for my life? What are you calling me to do? I continued to struggle. My passions and desires have been the same my whole life. The way I make a living has shifted from time to time, but my passions and desires have been in the ranching and rodeo industry. I desire to receive the “job well done my good and faithful servant” from the Lord the day I go to heaven. My passions have always revolved around horses and cattle. I live for it. I love every aspect of being a horse trainer. I love raising colts. I love raising cattle. I love trading cattle. I love the sport of rodeo and enjoyed riding bucking horses. I love everything about the ranching and rodeo lifestyle. I love being a cowboy and a horseman. I don’t even mind the part where you don’t get rich doing it. I just love working, and especially working in the horse and cattle industry and I was told young its better to be broke doing what you love every day, then be rich and hate your job and so far in my life I agree.
Since becoming a father two years ago, I have a desire to raise my kid and kids to come with the morals I believe in. I have a passion to love my children unconditionally, discipline them when needed, show them who the Lord is, and show them the importance of having a relationship with Jesus. I love showing my kid how to saddle his horse, rope, ride, and work hard. I love showing my child how to use his brain and think through situations. I have a passion to be the best parent I can be and give my kid every opportunity to be whatever he wants to be. Whether it be a cowboy or a toothbrush salesman I just want to teach my children to work hard, chase their dreams, be the best at what they’re doing, and be able to give them every opportunity possible to be the best at whatever they want to be. I have a passion to love and provide for my wife. We have the same struggles and arguments that every married couple has, but I have a desire to love my wife and be the best husband I can be. I have a passion to take care of and treat well, the gift that the Lord gave me, my queen, to the best of my ability.
I have a passion to help people out. Whether it be giving a young kid a rigging who has a passion to be a bareback rider, teaching the beginners the ropes of rodeoing, or paying a young kids entry fees who doesn’t have the means. I love paying it forward. I like to help people out in the ranching industry, finding people the best prices in the cattle market and connecting ranchers to buyers. I love just giving a helping hand, branding, gathering, shipping, even fencing, whatever it may be. I enjoy helping people who are having horse problems and need help connecting with their horses. I love helping people who are struggling to get by for the year financially. I like to help buy winter feed, water tanks, tires for vehicles or whatever it is that helps them out. Whether it be through encouragement, finances, advice, or using my story and testimonies to point people to Jesus who have walked in the same shoes as me. I just love helping people. That is my desire. The Bible tells us in Psalms 37, that if we take delight in the Lord, he will give us our hearts desires. If we commit everything we do to the Lord and trust him, he will help us out (Psalms 37:3-5).
If you are loving the Lord, putting your faith and trust in his plan and timing, are seeking his will and are aligning your human will with God’s will for your life, he will give us our hearts desires. If these are the passions and desires from the Lord that I have for my life, why then do I question myself if I’m doing enough for the Lord? If I’m reaching enough people? If I’m walking in my calling? If I am fulfilling my will? Well, I along with many other saved Christians, have been confused with what God’s calling is. I recently did a Bible study, “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers that helped clear the question up.
That devotional taught me what the call of the natural life is. The call of God is not a call to serve Him in any particular way. My relationship with God and my contact with the Holy Spirit will shape my understanding of His call and will for my life. My contact with God will help me realize what I truly desire to do for him. The call of God is an expression of his nature. The service which results from that calling is an expression of my nature. The call of the natural life was stated by the apostle Paul in Galatians 1:15-16; “But before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles.”
You see, God calls each one of us to him. The righteous and lost alike are called to God. Before we are even born God equips us with gifts, tools, talents, passions, and desires. God wants us all to be saved, spend eternity in heaven, and be used by him on our walk through this life to point people to Jesus. God calls us to accept his grace and mercy, humble ourselves in repentance, trust him, and accept his sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as our salvation. It’s his free gift to us. No good deed earns it, and no sin is too great to deny us from it. The only thing that keeps us from receiving the gift of salvation is denying God and not accepting his gift of salvation. Denying his calling. The call of God is that simple. It is a call to an intimate relationship with our father. Just as I want to be the best parent and provide for my children, God wants to do the same thing for us, except he is perfect at it and I am definitely not.
When we accept this calling of the natural life and build an intimate relationship with Christ, the works I do, deeds I perform, and services I provide are the overflow which pours out form a life filled with love and devotion. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identity with the nature of God. Service becomes a natural part of my life. God brings me into the proper relationship with Himself so that I can understand his call, and then I serve Him on my own out of a motivation and obedience of absolute love. Service is an expression of my nature, and God’s call is an expression of his nature.
God loves every single one of us. He loves us right where we are. Whether we are righteous, saved and have drifted away, are a drug addict, alcoholic, or a murderer who is unsaved. Whether we are rich or poor, a good parent or bad parent, married or divorced, God loves us all! He calls us all to a relationship with him. When we accept his call, make him our savior, he sends his spirit to live in us. He has already equipped us with tools, talents, gifts, passions, and desires. The more time we spend building that relationship and become more intimate with God by, spending time reading our bibles, studying the nature of God who lives in us through the Holy Spirit, spending time in prayer seeking wisdom, guidance, and counsel, the more I will understand my passions and true desires. The more time I spend with God the more he is going to show me what I am good at. The more time I spend with God will result in more opportunities for God to use me. The more time I spend with God the more I can focus on what he desires me to be good at, and the more I will be made usable. The more time I spend with God, the more I will hear his voice and know where he wants me to go and what he wants me to do. We all can spend a little more time working on our relationship with God. I, along with everyone reading this, can spend more time reading my bible, more time in prayer, more time seeking him first in everything I do. We can all put out a little more effort to be in a better relationship with God. The more we do it the more it becomes a habit and becomes a natural part of our lives. That is our calling from God.
As we spend more time working on our relationship with God, he is going to call some of us to give an uncomfortable amount of money, pray in a public place, pray for a stranger, help someone out that we don’t like. He’s going to call some of us to pack up and head to a different country to be a missionary. He’s going to call someone to start a church and be a pastor. He’s going to call us into uncomfortable situations to grow our character. He’s also going to use some of us right where we are at in our workplace, on our ranch, on the rodeo trail, or in our communities to be the light and spread the Good News to the people we live with when the opportunity prevails. God’s calling each and everyone of us to serve him, it is our job to have the ear to hear when God calls “I need somebody”, and having the obedience to say “here I am, send me.”