Discovering Your Call

Posted on July 22, 2019 by admin

Answering the Call

In 2004, I was a college freshman.

Miserable.

Alone.

Depressed.

I had gone into college thinking I was going to be a science major. However, I remember one night staring into the microscope around 2 am trying to determine leaf structure, that I realized I didn’t want to do it anymore.

For someone already struggling with their place in the world, this was the last straw. I remember sinking into a deep depression. I felt like my whole world had been taken away.

A new city with no friends.

A lifeless major.

No sports to ground my days as they did in high school.

Lost.

Alone.

Defeated.

Gambling with God

During this time, I began a deep dive into my place into the world. I started to study the Bible and see if it had something for me.

I head this small voice telling me to think about a career in ministry.

I had tons of excuses about why that was a terrible idea.

I can’t speak in public.
I’m afraid of crowds.

I’m shy
I don’t want to.

Yet in my desire to find my place, I kept reading. I kept studying. And I kept hearing that voice. Finally, I had had enough. In a fit of rage and the cockiness of a 19-year-old know-it-all, I threw my Bible against the wall, promising to read whatever passage it fell open to.

If you can convince me to go into ministry through this, I’ll do it.

I was willing to gamble with God.

I picked up my Bible where it lay, plopped down on my bed, and read. My Bible (*coincidentially?*) had fallen open to Exodus chapter four.

In this story, a man named Moses is being called by God to free the Israelites from slavery at the hand of the Egyptians. Moses didn’t want to. He fought God’s call. He questioned God’s sanity.

Moses said:

I can’t speak in public.
I’m afraid of crowds.

I’m shy
I don’t want to.

Moses expressed everything to God that I had.

That small voice returned and said, “If I can do something with him, surely I can do something with you.”

Discovering Your Call

Now, I’m not saying I’m the next Moses. I’m far from it.

I’m also not saying that your call has to be as dramatic or painful as mine. I sure hope it’s not.

But here is what I have learned in the almost fifteen years since that day: Everyone has a call.

Your unique experiences, gifts, passions, interests, skills, and background have made you truly unique in this world. There is no one like you and you are like no one else. The world needs you. It needs your voice. Your perspective. Your championing of issues close to your heart. The world needs you, in all of your glory, to embrace who God has made you be at your core and live fully alive.

Without you, this world is incomplete.

Discovering your call is about finding whatever it is that makes you come alive. It is about blending your God-given potential with your world-changing desire.

So listen to that voice. Pursue it. Be open to it. As crazy as your world-changing idea may sound, it echoes in your soul for a reason.

It’s time to answer your call.

We are in a series on calling here on the blog. If you have a story idea, question or topic you want to be covered, or if you’re ready to work with Justin please fill out the contact form below.

Discovering Your Origin Story

Posted on July 19, 2019 by admin

The Backstory

As a boy growing up on the plains of windswept Kansas, I led a relatively normal life. My mom spent time as a librarian, teacher, and business owner. My dad worked on the land. My older brother and I spent hundreds of hours outside battling bad guys from all sorts of foreign planets, inventing makeshift toys, and practicing the latest wrestling moves we learned from Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.

As normal as my childhood seemed, if you knew me, I hardly doubt that “normal” would be a word you would use to describe me. Instead, I’m imaginative, passionate, and perhaps a bit creative. Driven. Focused. Intense. Loud. Thoughtful. Complicated if not a bit too simple.

That’s the tension we all live in right? We bumble and stumble through this world looking to find our place in it.

We ask questions like: Why was I made? What’s my purpose? Why am I here?

Each of these questions and the yearning desires that go along with them can point us to our calling, or in pop culture terms: our origin story.

Discovering Your Origin Story

Discovering your origin story is the quest of all great superheroes (of which I would consider you one. Look at all the amazing things you can do!).

Think of Spider-Man. An awkward, geeky teen suffering from personal angst (something we can all relate to) gets bitten by a radioactive spider.

Or Thor. Passionate and committed, he must also prove himself worthy to his father, to be king, and to wield the mighty hammer Mjolnir.

In May of 2008, your life changed dramatically, even if you didn’t know it at the time. That’s when the first Iron Man movie released and introduced to a wider audience both the Marvel universe and the idea of the origin story.

Discovering your origin story doesn’t have to be nearly as dramatic as any of those superheroes though. Instead, it can be done by intentionally investing time in yourself. Discover your unique story, perspective, and outlook on life. What makes you tick? What do you find important? How do you want to better the world?

In fact, in the upcoming release of my new E-Course “Discovering Your Origin Story,” we look at the three questions you must ask to discovery your calling:

What makes me feel totally and completely alive?
Who am I called to serve?
What does success look like to me?

While much more could certainly be said, this is the foundation for all work in discovering your origin story. Passions, hobbies, skills, are all important and all play a role, but it is these foundational questions that must first be answered.

Living Worthy of the Calling

All superheroes, even our modern-day ones, must choose to live worthy of their calling. One ancient writer, a man named Paul, wrote to a group of early Christians and said the same thing. He urged them to, “Live worthy of the calling they have received.”

My sincere desire and prayer for you is that you would do the same. Your life, gifts, passions, and unique quirks are far too valuable to waste, lose, or go unused.

May you live worthy of your calling.

May you discovery your origin story.

May you impact the world.

And may you be filled with joy as you do so.

Want help with your origin story? Click here to sign up and be notified of future training and courses to help you.

Self-Trust

Posted on May 18, 2019May 19, 2019 by admin

Learning to trust your instinct is often the hardest part of understanding your calling. The world, and well intentioned others, have filled us with lies that we have started to believe as truth.

Learning to Trust Yourself Again

As children, we often intuitively trusted our own judgments. We made friends easily, forgave quickly, and ever so naively jumped off the fence thinking we would be ok.

Somewhere along the way, however, we started to doubt our capabilities. We listened to the fear present in other people and settled for the merely ‘average’ life.

Don’t rise too high or you might fall. You don’t want to be a failure, do you?

The problem, of course, is that you were never made for average. You were made for exceptional. And the great lie is that by never trying, you would never fail.

Building your self-trust, that deep-seated belief in yourself, your capabilities, your resolve, your gifts, and your contributions to the world is often the hardest part of embracing your calling.

Deep down, we know we were made for something special. Yet, deep in our hearts, we have let the lies of the world take root. We have abandoned the calling placed on us by our Creator to settle.

Listen to this: you can settle and make it through this life. But you will never reach your full potential. Never make your maximum impact. Never transform someone’s life for the better. Never be truly happy.

Self-Trust is the first secret to success.

Developing your calling requires that you learn to re-trust yourself. Your gifts, passions, abilities, emotions, and perspectives. That “gut feeling” that you were made for more? It’s 100% true.

Trust that.

Lean into that.

Listen to that voice.

Take action on that instinct.

Learn to self-trust, embrace your calling, and transform the world.