Desire and calling
Monday, November 24, 2008 at 9:44AM 
Show me a person who has lost his or her sense of desire, and I'll show you someone who doesn't know what their calling is.
You find your calling through your deepest desires.
There are those who would advise us not to do this, because it could lead to sin or some form of ruin. Their assumption is that all desire, or the vast majority of it, is fleshly and self-centered and must be avoided. Yet, this is not a New Covenant view of desire ... because it's not a New Covenant view of the believer's heart.
With our new heart, given by God when we said 'yes' to Jesus, comes a reservoir of good and noble desires. Find those desires and you'll find your calling.
As you trace desire throughout your life, from childhood to today, what are the recurring themes?
- What have you loved doing and do well?
- What do you find yourself compelled to bring in any given situation?
Our giftedness tends to go beyond mere competency or training, as we find that there is something spiritual occuring that is both us, and beyond us in its working. It is the outflow of the Holy Spirit in us, working as us.
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Gary Barkalow, formerly of Ransomed Heart ministries, has recently launched a full-time mission to help others discover their calling. I've experienced his teaching and found nothing else like it in depth and scope. Here's a link to Gary's site: The Noble Heart
Jim Robbins
I don't want to have a derivative life: No mimicry of other's personal aspirations; no living from someone else's script. A vicarious life is a borrowed life. I want to offer the weight of my own heart and the artistry that proceeds from there in ways that are not driven by sales outcomes, market expectations, or religious sub-cultures. I must be me. That is the nature of incarnation - the self-revelation of God through a Body of bodies who can only represent him faithfully if they are themselves.
As the Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once said, "What I do is me: For that, I came." As Gary Barkalow of The Noble Heart asks us, "What is in you that is so unique, that if you don't live with it, the Kingdom of God will live without it?"
Reader Comments (1)
Okay, Jim. You forced me to do it - post back to back Jim Robbins blogs.
This blog is great and I just HAD to direct my readers to it. Thanks for teaching and encouraging us about our good hearts..