 enowned author and minister Jill Briscoe talked recently to Ministry Mentor about the sometimes confusing task of figuring out God’s calling for our lives. It’s easier than you think, she says, especially since our callings are really all the same.
Here’s why Jill Briscoe says you shouldn’t stress about it.
MM (Ministry Mentor): How are Christians supposed to figure out what their calling is?
JB (Jill Briscoe): I think there are two callings. That’s what Os Guiness says in his book, The Call, which is an excellent book on the subject. One is our primary call, which is our relationship with God. The second call is to task, and that is often diverse. Jeremiah was called first to relationship with God, and then to be a prophet to a nation. Our secondary calling could be as a mother, an evangelist, a teacher, or a preacher. There are many, many tasks, and we shouldn’t live our lives in those. We should live our lives in our primary calling, which is to obedience and developing our relationship with God. As that is developed, then the tasks change. But the primary calling doesn’t change.
MM: What if someone—a seminarian, for example—is confused and feels like she’s following God, but just doesn’t feel a clear calling on the task part?
JB: What she needs to do is write down on a piece of paper why she is in seminary. What got her there? Was it the advice of other Christians? Was it reading the Bible? Was it circumstance? What was it? Then she needs to take these various elements and apply them to her future decisions.
In other words, you need the advice of those who know you, you need your inner, heart conviction, you need a lot of prayer and study, and you also need to consider circumstances, opportunity, and gifting. All of these things are important.
MM: What if, in the process of discerning your calling, you come to the conclusion that God wants you to do something that seems frightening or even dangerous?
JB: When God calls us to do things, it’s only safe to do what he wants us to do. I mean, Moses was never as safe as when he was among the crocodiles in the Nile, because he was where God wanted him to be. If God calls you to minister somewhere, it doesn’t always mean you’ll be kept safe physically, but you’ll be kept safe inside. I think we ought to be a lot more afraid of being disobedient.
It all comes back to what we believe about the plan of God; you don’t go to heaven one minute before you’re meant to. I believe that with all my heart. I happened to get on a United flight on 9/11 and was in the air when [the attack] happened and was diverted to Newfoundland. At that point, when the pilot came on and said, “We’re making an emergency landing, and I can’t tell you why,” I remember glancing heavenward for a verse and hearing Psalm 139:16, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” I realized then that nothing can happen to the child of God outside the will of God. I was in exactly the right place. And I think that’s where we have to start—with our theology.
MM: What are some ways we can keep ourselves from becoming overwhelmed or burned out in our calling?
JB: I think you have to know yourself. You have to know how God made you, and you have to be brutally realistic about it. I often use an illustration of a boat with a water line around it. The purpose of the water line is to balance the boat. If you have too much cargo, you sink. If you don’t have enough, you’re unfulfilled. The whole art of balance is figuring out the kind of boat you are—a tug, a steamer, or a Titanic. Then you will know the appropriate carrying capacity. Other people can help us with that—our family, church, and friends. Of course, beyond knowing yourself, you have to make a point of tapping into spiritual resources. I’m constantly overloading. I get low—both physically and mentally. I don’t burn out—I’m just out, out of resources. But then I turn around and go back to drink. I spend a lot of time with the Lord. And then I’m renewed. That’s the secret—the Holy Spirit’s enabling. |
here can be no greater endeavor than to prepare for a lifetime of ministry. But how do we keep our hearts soft and our spirituality fresh while parsing Greek verbs? We have to remember that God will always burst through our exegetical frameworks and escape the systematic boxes of our academic study. How do we do this? Here are a few suggestions:
rofessional counselors say that you should always avoid too many changes within one year. Oops. How about in four months? In this short period of time I graduated from college, moved, got married, both of us started new jobs, and I started seminary. We had no friends and hadn’t found a church. 
