This is the third post in a series on calling. 

1. You Have a Calling: Here's Where to Start
2. Four Lies About Your Calling
   

Now we get to the question most people actually want answered. How do I figure out what mine is?

There's no formula. But there is a pattern. And before we get to it, we have to talk about something that often gets skipped in conversations about calling. Your family.

Where Family Fits

You have more than one calling. Your primary calling is to Jesus. Your secondary calling is to a task. But I'm increasingly convinced there's something in between those two: your calling to care for your immediate family.

This is me speaking, not the Lord, but as far as I can tell, the order of our callings looks something like this:

1. To Jesus
2. To our family
3. To the work God invites us into

I'd rather win at home and fail at work than win at work and fail at home. I am not so unique that God couldn't raise someone up to take my role at my church. But God has called me uniquely to my wife, my children, and my mother. I'm replaceable at work. I am irreplaceable at home.

Paul says it bluntly in 1 Timothy 5:8: "Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

Families have been wrecked because a parent makes an idol made of the Lord's work. If the Lord's work destroys your family, you have mishandled the Lord's work.

Having a spouse and kids doesn't change the calling itself. But it absolutely affects the opportunities you take.

A few years back, an offer came across my desk to interview for a lead pastor at a large church in another part of Alberta. There were genuinely good things about it. But there was one obvious problem. It wasn't in my city. I brought it home. My wife wasn't thrilled with the location, but she was willing to consider it if we sensed God in it. So we prayed. And eventually it became clear that this was a dead easy no.

Why? At the time, my mother was living with us. Chronic joint pain meant she couldn't live alone. She needed to live with us. My responsibility to her, as her son, came before any particular job opportunity.

In my order of callings, my family came before a particular task. And because the order was already settled, I was able to make a clear conscience, God-honouring decision quickly. Over the next few months, two more opportunities came my way. Both were easy nos. I didn't even have to pray about them. The work of calling prioritization had already been done.

So how does this affect you? You have to contextualize your calling in light of your responsibility to your family.

Sensing a call to be a missionary in Syria is wonderful. Will it cost you your family to do it? How is your kid's mental health? Is your spouse on board? Are your aging parents cared for? If the answer to any of those is no, that doesn't mean your sense of calling is wrong. It means it needs to be contextualized to the season you're in. Could you be a missionary to Syrians here in your own city now?

The calling doesn't disappear when family is factored in. It gets shaped, sharpened, and rightly ordered.

Three Questions That Help You Find Your Calling

So, again, how do you figure out what specific calling God has on your life?

Asking these three questions will get you most of the way there: 

1. What are my burdens?
2. What are my gifts?
3. What do I want to do for God?

These work together. None of them is enough on its own. But where the three converge, you usually find your calling.

Burden: What Makes Your Heart Ache?

A burden is a weight you carry that other people don't. A piece of the world's pain or possibility that won't leave you alone.

When it comes to people, what kind of person are you drawn to? Kids? Teenagers? Young adults? The elderly? The poor, the middle class, the wealthy? People from a particular religious background, like Muslims or Hindus or atheists? People in a particular family structure, like single parents, the widowed, the divorced, blended families? People with disabilities?

Is there a geographical place that catches your attention? When news from Ukraine or Sudan or Palestine or Nigeria pops up on your social feed, do you stop and read? Or do you scroll past?

Is there a particular human struggle that breaks your heart? Mental illness, abuse, addiction, fatherlessness, loneliness, sex trafficking, foster care?

Pay attention to what makes your heart ache. That ache is often a holy burden.

And here's something worth saying: not everyone has the same burden. Just because you carry one for something doesn't mean someone else will. God only gives us a limited amount of emotional energy, and we are not burdened to the same degree on every issue in the world. So don't worry about other people's burdens. What's yours? What makes your heart ache?

That's the first thread.

Gifts: What Are You Good At?

The second question is about gifting. What are you good at?

Two categories matter here. Natural abilities, which are God-given. And spiritual gifts, which are supernatural abilities given by the Holy Spirit. Every believer has spiritual gifts. First Peter 4:10 says, "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."

Notice the orientation. Your gifts are others-centric. They were given to build up the church, not to make you feel important. Which means your gifts will absolutely show up in the task God calls you to. They are the toolkit He has equipped you with.

A plumber, an electrician, a nurse, and an engineer each have the right tools to do their work. Spiritual gifts are the toolkit God gives you to do the work He's called you to do.

So how do you discover your gifts? A few ways, all working together.

Read passages like Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 prayerfully. As you read the lists of gifts, do any stand out? Do any bring you joy? Does the Holy Spirit nudge you on a particular one? Inner confirmation matters.

Ask trusted Christian leaders or friends what gifts they see in you. Sometimes other people see what we can't see in ourselves. The body of Christ is supposed to help name what God is doing in each member.

Pay attention to where you're effective in ministry. When the church announces an event or a need, where does your mind go? Do you immediately want to be on the prayer team? Behind the scenes setting things up? Pushing for a clear evangelistic message? Wondering how much it costs and how you can give to it? Wanting to teach the content? Where you are most effective and most fruitful is usually where you are most gifted.

Use spiritual gifts assessments, but with a pinch of salt. The results aren't gospel truth. They're a starting point, useful when held alongside the other markers above.

You can already see how burden and gifts start to interact. If you have the gift of mercy and a burden for the homeless, the signs are pointing somewhere obvious. If you have the gift of teaching and a burden for people in your community who don't know Christ, the signs are pointing somewhere, too.

Desire: What Do You Want to Do for God?

The third question is the one we're most reluctant to ask. What do you actually want to do for God?

A lot of Christians have absorbed the idea that the things they want must be suspect, that calling is supposed to feel like reluctant obedience to something they'd never have chosen. Sometimes that's true. Jonah comes to mind.

But Paul says something interesting in 1 Timothy 3:1: "Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task."

Aspires. Desires. The language is unmistakable. Wanting to do something noble for God is not a red flag. It's often a piece of the puzzle.

This was an important question for me personally. I never had that altar moment where God, in some powerful encounter, solidified a call into ministry. What I had was a desire. I wanted to be a pastor. I wanted to help people understand what it meant to follow Jesus. I wanted to teach the Word. 

For a long time I assumed that wasn't enough. That without a dramatic encounter, the desire was suspect. But the desire was real, it was persistent, and over time it lined up with my burden and my gifts. It turned out to be exactly the call.

If you have a deep desire to bless others in a particular way, especially one that has stayed with you over time, that's a God-given desire. Don't dismiss it because it didn't arrive with thunder.

Where the Three Converge

Here's how this looks practically. Where your burden, your gifts, and your desire converge, you find your calling.

For me, I have a burden for people who don't know Christ. I have a gift set for teaching God's Word. And I have always wanted to be a pastor at a local church. Burden, gifts, desire, all converging in the same direction. That's how I know I'm walking in my calling. I'm confident in it.

So sit with the three questions: What's my burden? What am I good at? What do I want to do for God?

Write your honest answers. Notice where they overlap. Bring those answers to the Lord, to your spouse if you have one, and to a few mature believers who know you well. Where the three threads weave together, your calling is usually somewhere in that pattern.

You don't have to have it all figured out today. Calling tends to clarify over time, not all at once. Be faithful with what's in front of you right now. Steward the people under your roof. Stay close to Jesus. Pay attention to what stirs your heart, what flows easily through your life, and what you keep finding yourself wanting to do.

That's where God's call on your life will meet you.