Has your ‘call’ called?: Control the control #3

This is Part 3 in the series Control the Control… going through the process of pausing in your life to regain and find your purpose. 

1.  Know where you are

2.  Know where you are called

3.  Own ‘your’ process

4.  Take your next step

Know where you are ‘called’

As I write this, my father is cutting hay.  I have just taken a few minutes to watch him at his craft.  On the tractor, systematically and full of grace he cuts hay.  He does not waste a movement.  His moves are efficient, not wasting a bit of time.  Yet he is never in a hurry.

My Dad understands his call.  His call to farm is a coming together of many things.  One, he was raised on a farm.  He was mentored by a veteran farmer who name was General (how cool is that?).  Two, my Dad is good at it.  He has both art and understanding when it come to the land.  Above all else, he loves the work.  As much as the that grass grows is planted in the ground, farming is planted in my Dad.

This is the best picture I have to offer of what a calling truly is.

Calling is both mystical (beyond us) yet is grounded in our experience.

Calling is the thing that gnaws at the pit of our stomach late at night and early in the morning as you wake.

Calling is already in you.  You have sensed it on the fringes of life as well as at the center.

So how do you know what your calling is?  How do you name it and start allowing your days to be defined by it?

After a lot of conversations with friends, family and with God throughout the years I have developed a pretty decent sense of where God is calling me.  Again, I know this in principle, not as much in the super detailed specifics of my call.

I hear the response a lot, “How do I know what God has called me to?”

My response, “Have you asked?  If so, what do you sense you are hearing?”

If I were to sit down with you and we were discussing what you are called to do,   I would ask some questions like this:

What do you care most about in your life?

What would love doing every day of your life?

What do you feel you are really good at?

Find a piece of paper or an open document on your computer.  Answer these questions in the most honest and vulnerable way in which you can muster.  After that find a friend, someone that knows you well.

Ask, “What do you sense I am called to do?”

Listen.  Share your answers.  Talk through it.

This conversation will point you in the right direction.  Specifics are allusive in this work.

Seek the knowns.

When it comes to your call, name the knowns that you are to be seeking after. 

With that direction in hand – pick up the next steps in the process – Own your process and take the next steps.