Hearing the Call of God and Falling in Love with his Nature

Waiting for Answers from God and Waiting to Hear his Voice and Guidance

Waiting on an answer from God to the question that plagues every Christian’s mind at some point, “God what do you want me to do with my life,” is never easy. This encompasses career, marriage, and service to God.

When I was plagued with these questions (and by the way, I still don’t have answers, I am just looking at the situation differently now and am therefore not plagued by it anymore) I took comfort in my favorite bible verse: Romans 8:28 “for we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose.” But recently I have begun to look at this verse, which I thought I knew so well and held so dearly, differently. I asked myself “what does it really mean to be called according to his purpose? And if I claim that I love God, what does that love actually look like?

The Call of God

First, I want to discuss the Call of God, because it directly relates to loving God. I was recently working my way through Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for his Highest, and I came across his discussion of the call of God. There are few moments in life when you read something that completely changes your mind about something, but when you do have those moments, they are very powerful.  

What Oswald Chambers explains in his discussion of the Call of God is that ‘The Call’ is actually a reflection of the nature of God, it is not a call to any particular service. Service becomes a natural desire, bred out of love for God to serve him; it is a response to The Call of God, but is not actually The Call itself. We are therefore not called to service, but are called to a personal relationship with God, out of which develops a desire to serve. We therefore cannot hear the call of God unless we are seeking a personal relationship with God.

In order to attain a close, personal relationship with God, though, we must first seek him out and get to know him. This is another excellent point that Oswald Chambers discusses in this same devotional book, he mentions that in order to hear the voice of God and to get to know his character, we have to seek to be alone with him. In other words, God reveals himself and his nature to us in the moments when he gets us alone (Mark 4 Jesus reveals to the disciples the meaning of the parables, Exodus 3 God speaks with Moses alone through the burning bush).

When I thought I was Hearing a Call to Service

I had been praying earnestly for many months that I would receive a job and be able to meet my financial needs. I had left a job in Canada and come to Germany because I knew that it was where the Lord was leading me, but while in Germany nothing seemed to be happening work-wise to permit me to stay, so I naturally had questions about why this was.

When I got to a point of particular discouragement, praying many nights in tears asking “when Lord?” and “just talk to me Lord, say something!” I was feeling uneasy and burdened. Until I got a comforting confirmation at a bible study to alleviate a particular looming fear. It wasn’t an answer, but it was the Lord speaking to me and saying something. When I finally got around to the prayer that I should have been praying, surrendering everything to God and letting him speak, and giving up this worry and simply asking for him to guide me and show me how I can serve him while I wait; it was only then that I got a really big answer that seemed like an incredibly open door. Enter NTM (New Tribes Missions). I had spent the morning praying for a way to serve the Lord with the talents that he has given me, and by that evening I had had a conversation with an NTM missionary who mentioned that they had been praying for some time now for a writer. Because it seemed like an absolute answer to prayer and an incredibly open door (since I had people from the head office in Canada, USA, and New Zealand all contacting me trying to convince me to go to their chapter) I was swept away in it all.

And yet, I had two small fears or reservation in the back of my mind. The first was financial, since working for NTM was on a faith-based income, and the second and perhaps more looming reservation was that I would have to leave Germany and I didn’t feel like the Lord was done with me here yet. It didn’t really make sense to me that he would bring me here just to have me leave again in only 5 months. Especially since I had been growing significantly in my spiritual life here and he was definitely not done with this aspect of my life (and never will be). I now beleive that when you know that you are going in the direction that God wants you to go, there are no fears and reservations that this is the right path. My doubts were a good sign that this was not the direction God had planned for me, at least not yet.

Finally one night, instead of praying and asking him in which direction I should go with NTM (Canada, US, or NZ), I stopped and considered and then prayed, “Lord, even though this seems like an incredibly open door and a way to serve you, if this is not the road that you want me to go down, please close this door and make it without a doubt clear to me.” The next morning he closed this door. I was momentarily discouraged, but then I realized that God answered my prayer in a very big and obvious way and how can I ever really be discouraged when God speaks to me and answers a question that I am asking?

I was thinking that since it was a call to serve God fulltime, and was a perfect position that I was completely skilled to perform, and because there was so much interest from 3 different countries, that this was God giving me his blessing to go in this direction. And I thought that anything that is serving the Lord is an obedience to the call of God and can’t be wrong.

But I now think differently. I think that God wouldn’t call me to a life of fulltime service where I need to be able to trust him for everything and through his strength stand on my own two feet…when I am only crawling in my spiritual life. I have made significant strides in this area, but I would have still been in over my head.  I think he showed me an option, but it doesn’t mean that it is something that I am to do right now. And I think he was getting me to evaluate just how much I actually trusted him, and if my faith had grown past that of a child (a person who loves God when everything is going right and gets angry with God and discouraged when things are going wrong). I learned an important lesson in trusting and worshiping in the ups as well as the downs.

Finally, I learned that the prayer that I was praying, that the Lord show me a way to serve him with the gifts he has given me, wasn’t necessarily the right way to pray about this. As Oswald Chambers points out, “as long as I consider my personal temperament and think about what I am fitted for, I shall never hear the call of God. The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says.” This is because it is a focus on self and how I want to use the gifts that I believe God has given me, for his service. This is saying ‘God I want to serve you in this way’ instead of asking ‘God how would you like me to serve you?’ It is a slight shift, but it makes all of the difference.

In all aspects of my life I have been thinking in the wrong way. I have been asking for the job that I wanted instead of asking him what he wants for me, and I have been asking for a way to serve him in the way that I thought I could be of most use, instead of asking how he wanted to use me.

I think every day I learn that even with good intentions I fall short and make mistakes and I am very humbled by this knowledge and am grateful for a Lord that deals patiently with me and lovingly shows me my slight errors in thinking.

Coming back to this notion of hearing the call of God then, the above example was not the call of God. Not only because it wasn’t the path that I am supposed to take (at least not right now), but because it was a lesson in the difference between service and the actual Call of God (being called to a personal relationship with Christ and learning more of his nature).

I have mentioned this ordeal to a few people and how God clearly spoke to me, and I have had the same questions asked, the most pressing one being “how did you get to a point where you heard God speaking to you or had direct answers to your prayers?” The only way that I can answer that is I was earnestly before the Lord in prayer, I asked for specific answers, and I was learning to let go of myself and hold on to him. The closer I get to the Lord and spend time personally with him, the closer I get to understanding his character, and the more that I understand his nature, the easier it is to hear his voice and understand his guidance. That sounds obscure, but it is the only way that I can explain it.

I think that sometimes we are too impatient and when we are praying about something and earnestly seeking an answer, we tend to grab on to anything that seems like an answer to us instead of patiently giving it back to the Lord. I grabbed on to NTM because it seemed like an open door, but it was only when I gave it back to the Lord that I realized it wasn’t…I had made it my answer when it wasn’t the answer the Lord had in mind for me. And further still, I had been praying all along that the Lord provide a way for me to stay in Germany, but it was only after I gave up this desire and started praying that if he wanted me to go home that he just work in my heart to let me be ok with it, it was only then that he gave me the job in Germany that I will be starting this Monday.

All of this ‘struggle’ that I have been going through over the past few years, and especially over the past few months, it was all a lesson in trusting him and surrendering to him, but most importantly, of getting to know him and understand him.

If what Oswald Chambers says is true, that the Call of God is essentially a call to know him deeply on a personal level, then the only way to hear that call, the only way to hear the Lord speaking to you and giving you answers to your prayers, is to seek to know him better, instead of focusing on yourself and your needs.  

Falling in Love with God

Throughout this whole learning period, not only did I get a different understanding of the Call of God, but what it means to fall in love with God. If I hear the call, and I am learning more about his nature, this is the beginning of love.

I used to believe that falling in love is the scariest thing that a human being can ever do. It also seemed to me like one of the hardest things a human being will ever have to try to achieve. And if you approach it like most people do, asking what you get out of it and how it makes you feel, then it is impossible to achieve. Falling in love with a person is gaining a deeper appreciation and admiration for who they are, it isn’t based on how they make you feel. So I am now seeing this ‘scary ordeal’ as a beautiful and wonderful process that is natural, simple, and organic.

Let me clarify that, to fall in love is an organic process because it happens slowly and gradually and naturally. The opening of a song that I have been listening to lately describes this process:

Captured effortlessly

That's the way it was

Happened so naturally

I did not know it was love

Now I am no authority on the subject of love, I am merely learning to crawl here, but this is my understanding of it. If I am falling in love, I am thrilled and amazed by all of the little things I am learning about that person, all of these little things make me understand the person better, see the person clearer, and make me love and appreciate them that much more. I have an earnest desire to be around that person and my assumptions about that person (when proven wrong or proven right) bring me closer to knowing that person deeply. Meaning, when I have an assumption and it is wrong, I am delightfully surprised and feel even closer to that person. When I have an assumption (something I already admire in that person) and it is proven to be right, I am all the more drawn to that person and this attribute that I already appreciated.

So the question is, with my very basic understanding of love, is this what my love for the Lord looks like? Am I drawn to him and want to know everything I possibly can about him? Am I actually learning new things about his character that delight me? Am I seeking him out and having personal time with him where I can learn more about him? Am I amazed by him and want to spend time every day with him and want to spend the rest of my life getting to know everything there is to know about him, knowing full well that it will actually take longer than a lifetime to achieve that, but that I nevertheless want to make the most of the time that I have and try?  

I accept that he knows me better than I know myself and has my whole life planned out already, and that is a wonderful sense of security. But how well do I know him? How well do I want to know him? In the moments when we need something, we come to the Lord, but do we seek him earnestly even after those needs or prayers have been answered? If the answer is no, then that is not love. And there is a vast difference to being thankful and appreciative of what the Lord has done for you and being appreciative of who your Lord is and earnestly wanting to know him more. If we stay in the first group in our relationship with the Lord, we are seeing only a fraction of the Lord’s nature and who he is and we cannot grow to a deeper understanding and appreciation of him because the focus is on ourselves (what he has done for us) not on who he is.

And then comes in the call to service, which is an answer to the call of God; it is a direct result of falling in love with God because it is an expression of this love back to God. We show God that we love him by seeking him and seeking to serve him and seeking to delight his heart.

These thoughts are still not completely clear in my mind to adequately express them, and so I have no answers or insights for you on this matter, because it is something I am just learning myself. But what I have learned so far is that the closer I am to God, the more I can hear his voice, and the more that I get to know and fall in love with the nature of God, the more that I understand him and the way that he is guiding me, not to mention the more happy and blessed and complete I feel.

Only a few months ago I thought that I could never be happy if certain things weren’t in my life and if I had to come to a point where the only thing that I cared about or wanted was God. It was a selfish thought and it was completely immature and wrong. I realize that my desire for these things were higher than my desire for God, which is most likely why they were withheld, because why would God grant me these things that I place above him?

Now that I am genuinely trying to get to know my Lord, I am saddened by the fact that I ever thought he couldn’t be enough. God is always more than enough. Do I still have certain desires? Absolutely, but since his timing has been perfect in everything that he has shown me thus far, I trust him in this too. And in the meantime, I can use this time to continue to get to know him. I am young, single, finished with school and all of its demands, and have very few responsibilities outside of my job, there is no better time to spend hours getting to know and love my savior. I am not going to let thoughts of unfulfilled desires take up my time, because they will eventually be fulfilled, and I would rather spend time focusing on the one that I love and the constant figure in my life, than on what I do not yet have.