Discovering

There is usually a tug of war between the Calling and the Career.  A career is prize resulting from your academic pursuit. For instance, your degree which qualifies your to teach or a computer engineering qualification that lands you a career in the IT industry.  You may be good at it but it does not automatically mean that it is your calling. Many people are engaged in assignments they know they are not called to. They may be there because it is popular, or their parents or  or friends talked them into it, but they are like a fish out of water in that place. This does not mean that they are not good at that assignment but the fact  is that they do not derive fulfilment it.  Why? It is not their calling. They would be rather doing something else.

Some people know what that ‘something else’ is, others do not know what it is. They may have a vague idea about it is or not at all.

 In order to discover your purpose, you must go back to basics: believe that:

 God created you (Gen1:26,28, Ps139:13-16)

 2. He had a purpose in mind before creating you

For illustration purposes, let’s assume that God had a purpose: ‘the making of the ultimate chair.’ He then creates someone to fulfil that dream. Before they show up on planet earth God equips them with the blue print. No one comes  empty. However, their environment would also add to their equipment and readiness for fulfilling the vision. This is why we educate ourselves.

My pupose or assignment is inspiration and so whatever I do revolves around inspiration. I understand that there are many people involved in  the inspiration business, nevertheless I  know  my purpose is still unique and necessary. I have a role to play. There are people I am assigned to. I have unique gifts for my purpose. These gifts need to be developed before they can be deployed.

 ¹¹   For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

¹²   Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

¹³   And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

(Jer29:11, Rom8:28-29,Gen45:7-8,Esther 4:13-14,EX3:9-10Jer1:1-12)

 3. He wants you to find that purpose, pursue it and finish it

Jesus knew His purpose.

¹⁸   ” The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

¹⁹   To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”

Luke4:18

³⁴   Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.

John4

⁴      I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.

John17:

³⁰   So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.

John19:30

Paul had a Purpose and so did Timothy (Acts26:16-18,2Tim4:6-8)

 

4. If you agree with the above fundamentals, then you must come into a personal relationship with your Maker. Only then will He unfold your purpose to you.

Jeremiah 9

²⁴  But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD. Jer9:24( Phil3:10, John1:12, 2Cor5:17

5. Find out from Him what He wants you to do.

Unless you want to please your Maker and fulfil His will for you like Jesus was desirous to do His Father’s will, you will not seek His face.

¹²   Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

¹³   And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Jer29:12-13

Paul prayed this powerful prayer for the Ephesians which you too can pray for yourself because unless He opens your spiritual understanding you will remain blind. Your eyes can be wide open and yet  shut. Think about it. Samson’s were wide open yet they were ‘shut’. He could not understand or see what the enemy was brewing or cooking to circumvent his purpose. He remained on Delilah’s lap until he was trapped and his eyes gorged out. The enemy wants to gorge out your eyes or my eyes- symbolic of vision. The Philistines knew that if Samson could not see, he would not be able to do damage. Similarly, the enemy knows that if you do not have a vision or if you do not know your vision,  you cannot do damage to his kingdom. And so he is after your vision and mine.

When  the Philistines heard that David had been crowned King over the whole of Israel they came in full force against him. Why was this?

Because they saw David as a threat. They knew that David had a heart after God and knew his vision and God’s purpose for his life and would not give an inch. This is why the enemy will not trouble you if you are not a threat. You need to be worried if the enemy is not giving you a hard time . It probably means you are already conquered (compromising) and walking in the same direction with him.

¹⁷   that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,

¹⁸   the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Ephe1

6. Once you know what He wants you to do, you need to take steps of faith to fulfilling it, and as you do, more steps or inroads will be revealed to you.

(Note that it will be one step at a time; you will not know everything.) 

 

The Just Live by Faith

²     Then the LORD answered me and said: ” Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.

³          For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

The purpose or vision of an eagle is to be the king of the skies. that is his domain. he was made to soar. So when the eagle is trapped and put in a zoo for the sake of conservation, it has lost its purpose and it is a sorry sight. yes it may be well fed and cared for but it is cocooned, encased, quarantined, bottled and imprisoned. It is crying within, ‘Who will let me out of this place? I do not belong here. I belong in the skies.’ Its vision is aborted. It is living but it is dead.  I hope you see the importance of vision.

And so you may be doing very well in  an area of life making a lot of money and regarded as successful by the world around you, but you may still be unfulfilled.  This is because you are not in your calling. You may have a career but  you are yet to find your calling. You may feel  like a fish out of water, like the eagle. When you find your calling, you may not make much money from it -at least at the onset ( as has been my case) but you know you are in the right place and you’re fulfilled. Eventually God will  cause you to prosper if you give yourself to it because ‘Provision is in the vision.’

Developing

As indicated above, development cannot start until you have discovered your assignment. It may also be possible if you happened to be in an environment that enhances that gift or dream without knowing that you will need it at a later stage. However, you are unlikely to throw yourself in unless you are sure it is what you want to do in the future. Also it is worth knowing that you may be trained for your calling in other assignments that may not look as if they have any bearing with your  future calling. For instance, David was a shepherd looking after sheep- a role which later transferred to looking after people. The same applied to Moses. Joseph started by administering the estate of Potiphar before he was given the responsibility of the whole nation.

 Exodus 3: Moses at the Burning Bush

¹     Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

²              And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Ex3

 

Genesis 39: Joseph -a Servant of Potiphar

¹     Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there.

²     The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.

³     And his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD made all he did to prosper in his hand.

⁴     So Joseph found favor in his sight, and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority.

⁵     So it was, from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the LORD was on all that he had in the house and in the field.

⁶     Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

Gen39:1-6,1Samuel16:1-13, Acts9:1-16

Development of your dream may also require taking some formal education or training that is related. It may also require being an apprentice- being mentored by those who have a similar vision to yours.  This type of mentoring can be direct or indirect.

It is direct if you have physical contact with them and indirect when you have access to their resources, like books, cds, videos and other teaching materials or online or otherwise.

 

David went through various vicissitudes of life in his training for reigning. When King Saul was pursuing him from pillar to post, when he was acting like a mad man in the midst of the Philistines, whilst trying to take cover, when God gave him the opportunity to serve King Saul and minister to him while having a preview of his future palace, were all part and parcel of David’s training. It was not until he was 30 years of age that David began to reign. ( 1Sam16,17,18, 1Chro14:8-15)

 

Similarly, Jesus was preparing for His ministry and it was not until He was 30 that He embarked on it full-time and for three years. Moses was trained and developed in Pharaoh’s house as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and had the best education there was at that time. He however jumped ahead of God  and murdered someone and became a wanted man. He ran away to Midian  at forty where he got married and looked after the sheep for another forty years until he mellowed down. Then God came to him at the back of the desert to remind him of his purpose. Moses thought his ministry was over but it wasn’t until God says so. Moses was very hesitant –giving one excuse after another whilst God tried to convince him.

Eventually, Moses accepted the second wind that God gave him for his calling. He had been fully developed for his assignment, even through looking after sheep.

God will take you and I through similar developmental processes, even through the seemingly mundane tasks you are doing and I am doing.

Joseph experienced similar developments which came in the form of trials and tests- Pride test, Pit test, Palace test, Prophetic test, Patience test, Prison test, Power test, Pardon test, Prosperity test- before he was ready to reign.

( See Joseph:Dream to Destiny)

Deploy

It is true that the partition between the deployment of your purpose and your development may often be fluid because there are certain aspect of your vision that you can fulfil even when you are training.  That is why deployment of your purpose is in stages.

A Time For Everything

Everything has its due season. And so there is a time of preparation and there is a time for deployment. However, you have to start small, using what you have got to serve in your immediate environment ( your Jerusalem). You will have to serve others before others serve you. Even when others are serving you youstill would need to find other you can serve.

 Because development is life-long, you don’t wait until you’re ‘perfect’ before starting to impact people around you.  So use every opportunity that presents itself, taking the advice of those you’re under and getting feedbacks from them to help you improve in your deployment and fulfilment of your dream.

Partnership

Every dream has an initiator. But for any dream to be worthwhile, it has to involve others. In your dream is such that it does not need others coming on board, then it is too small and you need to think again. God wants us to have big dreams that will impact not only our generation but generations to come. Now, it should be obvious why I have the name: inspiration4generations.

So, I have dream mates and so do you.  God wants me to be involved in fulfilling other people’s dream and so does He want other people to be involved in my dream to help me fulfil it.  Some people believe that other people should help them fulfil their dream but they have no interest in other peoples’ dream.  Iremember a ministry that pestered me with letter requesting my contribution after I had responded once.  I got so fed up that I shared my vision with them and  wondered if they could help. Surprisingly the ignored my letterbut rather started sending me two letters. There was obviously miscomunication somewhere. I was not amused. Iwanted to stop one letter and I started getting two letters.

 Leaders need to understand that those under them also have visions and these need to be nurtured and tailored and encouraged and not seen as a threat to their vision. If you are in a Church you need to understand the vision of the house and support it without neglecting your vision. You cannot blame anyone but yourself if you don’t fulfil your vision. We need each other. No one is called to be an island.  This does not mean I have to be involved in every dream. It also means that I should not expect everyone to believe my dream or support it; and I should not expect everyone to applaud my dream or get involved in it. I should therefore not be disappointed when some people I think should support me do not support me. God has people for me. I need to pray and be led to them or pray that they be led to me.   I need to pray to get my timing right. Similarly, I need to pray about the dreams I get myself involved in. I should expect those who want to get involved in my dream to pray about it and be led of the Holy Spirit rather than join hands with me in sympathy. They need to be convinced that the Lord wants them involved with me so that there is no accusation of manipulation. 

Also, not all associations are permanent. So some people may support the vision for a while and leave at some point. There should be no animosity as a result. People should be free to join and leave without any coercion or bad blood. In the same way, you should be able to join or leave a dream you support without any reprisals.

 

Unless you are prepared to invest in your dream, do not expect other to.

Since I came to know the Lord, I have been supporting other peoples’ dream. Therefore I know, without a doubt, that God will bring people too to support my dream. He said ‘Give and it shall be given to you you…’

 Passion

 Unless you are passionate about your dream do not expect others to be passionate about it. You can see a portion of the 100s of songs the Lord has blessed me with in Sing a New Song. I am passionate about the songs. I sing them at home to the Lord and I use them to encourage myself when I am down. I am trusting God to have the resources to record them properly and disseminate them worldwide. Whenever I have the opportunity in Church or elsewhere, I use them to encourage others. thousands of hours ahve been invested in them during recording those songs and producing  many albums by myself.  Often I have had to sing soprano and record it and then sing alto and mix them to produce a unique recording you can hardly see anywhere.  It was vision that was propelling me to do it. I ahev spent a lot for  balck cds and dvds and labels for the vision. I ahev also learnt to shoot videos and shut hundreds of hours- directing and shooting in my room because of the vision of having something to motivate me for the future. The quality of the videos need much improvement but they serve as substance that I canb see toi motivate me to belive God for the best that is yet to come. God will bring the right people at the right time and they will take the bones and put flesh to to them, in Jesus’ name. It has not been a smooth ride. I have met with  my share  of opposition, disdain and rebuff  like David of old ( Eliab moments) but I am determined to go on –press on- to fulfil the vision.

 

You should be able to inspire others to buy into your dream so that they can be passionate and spontaneous about it and give their very best to it. You need wisdom, like David did, to motivate people to buy into the dream.  He was able to motivate those men who were in debt, rejected by society, depressed, written off and he recycled them into a formidable fighting machine; turning them into David’s Mighty Men of Valour and they helped him win many battles.

This is why you need to seek God’s face, who will give you the wisdom you need to attract helpers. My helpers are coming, in Jesus’ Name! my rope holders are coming, from the East, the West, North and South.

Genesis 39: Joseph a Slave in Egypt

¹     Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there.

²     The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.

³     And his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD made all he did to prosper in his hand.

⁴     So Joseph found favor in his sight, and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority.

⁵     So it was, from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the LORD was on all that he had in the house and in the field.

⁶     Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

Genesis 39: Joseph a Slave in Egypt

¹     Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. And Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there.

²     The LORD was with Joseph, and he was a successful man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.

³     And his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD made all he did to prosper in his hand.

⁴     So Joseph found favor in his sight, and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority.

⁵     So it was, from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the LORD was on all that he had in the house and in the field.

⁶     Thus he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

Support and Opposition of Purpose

Note Nehemiah’s vision which came from a burden he had after hearing about the deplorable state of his nation and the walls of Jerusalem falling down. He was very sad and then he did something about it. First of all, he prayed and fasted, confessing the sins of his people- identifying with them. As a result of this, God answered his prayer by giving him favour with the king who, not only gave him permission, but also recommendation, provision and protection. ( Neh1, 2 & 4:6)

       So we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

 ¹⁷   Then I said to them, “You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.”

¹⁸   And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. So they said, “Let us rise up and build.” Then they set their hands to this good work.

¹⁹   But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they laughed at us and despised us, and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?”

²⁰   So I answered them, and said to them, “The God of heaven Himself will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem.”Neh2

 

Nehemiah 6: Conspiracy Against Nehemiah

¹     Now it happened when Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall, and that there were no breaks left in it (though at that time I had not hung the doors in the gates),

²     that Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono.” But they thought to do me harm.

³              So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?”

The Wall Completed

Despite the opposition Nehemiah faced he persevered. God gave him men who were prepared to work and fight if need be and as a result the walls were rebuilt in a record time- 52 days.

May God give you people to help you in fulfiling your vision. May He grant you the vision to motivate them to buy into your vision and make it theirs. May He encourage you in times of trials and stengthen you with might in your inner being to go from glory to glory, from faith to faith and from strength to strength. Above all may you finish your vision.

¹⁵   So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days.

 So, my friend, find a good cause and pray about supporting it. Let the Lord guide you. Give your life to something worthwhile- something bigger than you. Look beyond yourself. Don’t be like the man who always prays: ‘Lord, bless me, my wife and our dog, Lassy.’