When I wrote my post on influencers I hesitantly pressed the “post” button. I braced myself for impact as I expected to get pushback. I thought surely it would start conversations with people about why they disagreed or why what I said was wrong. The opposite is what took place.
My phone BLEW up and the conversations were all weaved together with two common themes.
- Thank you for saying this
- Thank you for making me think about this
All of this said one thing to me: we need to talk about it and we need to talk about it more.
There is a younger generation, scratch that, there is an entire society out there with their eyes set on popularity, platforms, microphones, followers, with such an intense gaze that they are failing to realize that your eyes cannot be set both firmly on Jesus and an opportunity. For the past couple years, we have listened to a myth about influence and callings.
We throw the word “calling” around like it is confetti and somewhere along the way everyone’s confetti magically started to be the same color. Out of nowhere everyone is destined to be the next author, the next great communicator, a photographer, an artist, etc. Yet, when you zoom out you can see the perceived assumption that comes with all of these – visibility.
Do not hear me say that I don’t think you are called to any of these things but hear me say that you need to make sure you are listening to the calling of the Lord and not your desire to be seen.
The message of Jesus is not one that says, “I am going to give you a calling and send you out to bask in the sunlight.” By sunlight, I mean stage lights. Yet, you cannot tell me that we don’t live in days where this is what people think.
I just need to interject the soundtrack that has been playing for far too long and tell you – it is not what you think.
Think about characters in scripture: David, Abraham, Noah, Moses, and the list could go on and on. They were called. They were anointed. They were thrown from one place to the next and never once did they land in a comfort zone. They were mocked, people doubted them, they got frustrated, and they grew weary. Nobody wanted to listen to Noah. David was young. Abraham had to pack his bags and leave everything that was familiar to him. Yet, this was what their calling looked like.
Then there is Jesus. He had an unwavering confidence in what His calling was. He knew exactly what God had sent him to the earth to do. There is such importance to the fact time after time Jesus withdrew from the crowd. If your mindset and objective is to be in front of the crowd, you have already flipped the script. Being in front of people and with people was important to Jesus, but being with the Father was more important. I can’t help but think to ask you, “can you say the same?”
If you are looking for a one-way ticket to the top there isn’t one. I will be the bearer of the news. I won’t even call it bad news because it’s not, it is just truthful news. The journey we must take is not one to get to the top, the journey we must take it one that takes us as low as we can possibly go.
I am standing in the middle of days where I know without a doubt where I am headed. On May 23rd I will pack my car and drive to Rome, Ga where I will get the privilege of communicating all summer to middle and high school girls with WinShape Camps. Let me tell you, I am terrified. I won’t sugar coat it or dress it up in clichés. It is my second summer doing this role and the awareness of knowing what it looks like and what it will require of me scares me. I have had conversation after conversation with friends and even my mentor about the fears that surfacing, the weight I am carrying with this role going into the summer, and the feeling of being absolutely overwhelmed. Every time I would tell them, “this not what I thought this was supposed to look like.”
That is why I felt the stirring to write this post because I wish someone would have told me that seasons of holy discomfort happen. Seasons where you are confident and say yes in obedience but the yes comes with sweaty hands and shaky knees.
We have overcomplicated this idea of callings and need to strip it back down to the foundation and then build up from there. We are called to Jesus, Him and Him alone. We are called to an unswerving faith, a holy reverence, a posture of humility, and complete adoration.
We can be sure of the calling but the method and how we execute it might change from time to time.
If you are called to communicate do not think that comes with a guaranteed gig of standing in front of the masses. If you are called to sing, do not think that means in a certain place and a certain time only. If you are supposed to write, do not think that means just for the sake of posting it for others to read.
We seem to have mastered the art of deciphering what our callings are but are substantially lacking in the area of understanding how to walk them out. We are creatures where the bullseye is the what. We hear God speak about what the gifting is or what the call is and then we turn a deaf ear and pay such little attention to the how and the where. Then in frustration, we wonder why we aren’t doing what we thought God wanted us to do.
Let’s look at the life of David really quick.
Shepherd > Warrior > King
David was anointed and called at such a young age. We forget that where David went right after being anointing was back to the shepherd field. The call never changed but it was necessary for David to be where he was for more reasons that one. The first stop was not the palace.
Maybe you are in a place where God has kindly spoken the what and in stubbornness and wrong desires you have resisted going to the right where. The shepherd’s field might be where you need to be right now.
We must stop thinking that we know better about our callings than the Lord does. We have to stop letting social media and the rest of the world tell us how we are to walk them out. It not just stages and trendy settings. It is not – where am I going to get to do this? It is – How can I honor the gift the Lord has given me right here in this very moment?
I will be vulnerable enough to say as I think about camp the first place I go to is a pity party. There are a lot of changes from last summer. The people who I was closet with aren’t coming back. My best friend who I got to lead with all last summer is not returning and I was letting myself be dominated by the thought “I have nothing.” I let the enemy whisper the lie into my ear that I had no one who would be there for me this summer if I needed them.
As I boarded a plane last week and flew to Orlando to attended a conference to prepare for camp I read a passage in Luke and was overcome with conviction yet gratitude.
When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere. Luke 9:1-9
This whole time I have been worried about having nothing and through His word the Lord showed me that is exactly how He sends us out. He gives us the power of His Spirit and authority and apart from that, we require nothing else.
The sense of nothing is Him fulfilling His Word. It is how we sent out the twelve disciples. It is how He sends us out.
You do not need the title of an influencer. You do not need more followers. You do not need more opportunities. You do not need self- promotion. You do not even need to have the whole thing figured out yet. I can tell you that I don’t.
You are called to proclaim the good news and all you need to do that is His Spirit and He is offering it to you.
Go.
You don’t need anything else than what you already have in Him.
