How are you part of God’s plan? Paul tells us that God equips His people. How have you been equipped?
12 His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ 13 until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4)
God’s people are equipped for a rather lofty goal, “for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.”
Sometimes discovering how God has equipped us is defined as our calling. Unfortunately, many in the church believe that only pastors are “called.” This is not true. God seeks to work through all of His people.
Michael Hyatt had a great post this week where he walks you through a simple framework to discover your calling. Check out his video here, called “How to discern your calling.”
Daniel Pink in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us says the carrot and the stick are not the best way to motivate. I think living out your calling would be a great way to find motivation. You can find a TED Talk Pink did here which is very good as well.
Not sure what you are good at? Not sure what your strengths are? StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath as well as StandOut: The Groundbreaking New Strengths Assessment from the Leader of the Strengths Revolution by Marcus Buckingham are great tools.
There are a lot more places to turn these days. Above are a few that I have appreciated. I have not read the next two books, but I have listened to some of Jeff Goins podcasts. He wrote The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do.
Then there is also Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will by Kevin DeYoung and Joshua Harris.
I hope the above can help you better understand how you are part of God’s plan.
Blessings,
Pastor Matt
(All scripture cited above from Common English Bible Copyright © 2011)