INTRO

Halloween is magical because kids get to dress up and live their fantasy for a day and people adore them and give them candy!

My son David (age 12) was a "Pumpkin Head."  Kids kept asking, "Is that real?  Who's in there?"  Jenny (age 10) was a "Sleeper" dressed in pj's and with curlers in her hair.  Briana (age 8) was "Cindy Lou Who" from "The Grinch that Stole Christmas" and a little girl pointed her out and wanted her picture taken with Briana!

There's such beauty in kids going up to a stranger's house, saying "Trick or treat?" and receiving a treat.  (A stranger giving a kindness!  If only more of life worked that way for our kids - and everyone.)  You know we're all like that with God.  We go to God with the longings of our hearts and we say, "Trick or treat?"  A lot of people fear that God has a trick for them.  They think that God's plan for them is something they wouldn't like.  Or they think that when they knock on God's door He won't answer; He doesn't have a special purpose for their lives.  Some of us here think like this.

Does God have a treat for you?  Does He have a specific calling for your life, a unique and wonderful plan for who you're to be?

The Bible says he does.  As one example consider what God said to Jeremiah and through Jeremiah to all His children:

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations" (Jeremiah 1:5, NIV).

"For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV).

I was talking with a friend of mine who is a Christian speaker.  I asked him what his mission statement was. He didn't know, but he wanted to.  So I asked him, "How do you want to be remembered when you die?  What are the essential attributes to who you are?"

Three things came quickly to his mind:

1. "I want to be hospitable.  I like to be warm and friendly with people and invite them to participate in whatever we're doing."
2. "Being a gracious person is also really important to me.  I want to bless people with God's generous love."
3. "People tell me that I make things more fun.  I like hearing that because I want to help people relax and laugh and have a good time."

"So you want to invite people to receive God's grace in a way that is fun," I synthesized.

His eyes lit up.  "Yes, that's who I want to be!"

"One of the things that strikes me," I said to my friend, "is that you didn't experience these qualities as a child.  You didn't feel invited into a close and caring relationship with your parents.  Your childhood was dominated by your mother's criticism and negativity.  Your home growing up was anything but hospitable, gracious, and fun.  But here's the beauty of it: God has healed you and reconciled you to His love so that now you can comfort others who are struggling as you have in the past with the comfort you've received from God and His ambassadors."

Then I reminded my friend, "In your audience when you speak in churches and at seminars are people who don't feel welcome in Christian community.  They feel rejected or criticized.  They may be depressed.  You can speak right to the hurts and hopes in their hearts because you've come from the darkness of cold isolation and into the warm light of God's love."

"Inviting people to receive God's grace in a way that is fun.  I think that may be God's calling for you?"

FINDING YOUR "SWEET SPOT"

At the "Soul Care Pre-Conference" to the Care & Kindness Conference on March 10^th and 11^th one of the things I'm going to share with you is my theory of healthy human development and how it relates to counseling and ministry.

It's based on the idea that what all people need is God's life in their souls.  There's four ways that we need God alive in us, four basic needs that we have:

L-I-F-E: Love, Identity, Forgiveness, and Enthusiasm

The way that we live with enthusiasm is to live in God's calling.

Today I have a simple, but life changing concept to share with you: "Your heart will sing when you embrace God's blessing to be a blessing." 

If you came to last month's class on "Soul Connections" then you'll remember the four triangles I showed you.  Four three-way relationships modeled after Father-Son-Holy Spirit and culminating in God-Ambassador-Caller.  The last one I call "The Ministry Triangle." 

Our model is God, the way He relates with Himself and the way He relates with us.  God is love.  God is holy.  God is gracious.  God is joyous.  When He is who He is with us it meets our need and brings honor to Him.  So also when we live and relate to others with who we are it meets others' needs and honors God.

Bruce Wilkinson says that when we're doing what we love and it meets someone else's need this is our "sweet spot."  I'd add: this is true especially when we know that we're following God's call and honoring him.  Life on earth doesn't get any better than the three-way alignment of the ministry triangle (above).

Now, for the rest of this seminar I'm going to lead you through each of the three points on this triangle.  I want you to imagine that you and I are sitting down over tea or coffee and talking about living out our life callings.  First, I'm going to share with you how I've been finding my sweet spot and then I'm going to ask you some questions and put on some music for you to reflect.  When we're all done you'll be better prepared to live God's calling for you with confidence and joy, honoring God and blessing others who need what you love to give.

Are you ready?  Let's start!

USE YOUR GIFT AND FOLLOW YOUR HEART

Let's start by considering the bottom left corner of Ministry Triangle's "sweet spot."  In "The Dream Giver" Bruce Wilkinson says, "Your dream is beating in your chest."  It's what you're gifted to do.  It's what you love to do.

The wisdom of Solomon is that "Souls who follow their hearts thrive" (Proverbs 13:19).

He probably learned this from his father David who gave us one of my favorite Bible verses, "I will praise the Lord who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me" (Psalm 16:7).  In other words, one of the ways that God counsels or speaks to us is through our hearts.

So my question for you is what do you love doing?

When I was in high school I found that I loved to write and I dreamed of becoming a writer.  I even liked writing papers for school.  I especially enjoyed writing in my journal my own psalms like David wrote in the Bible.  I'd share my heart with God and write down what I thought he was saying to me. 

At a seminar I went to John Eldredge asked, "When you go to the bookstore where does your heart lead you?  What kind of book do you pick up?"  Ever since I was a teenager I'd go to the section on Christian Spirituality.  Those are still the books I like to read.  I dreamed of one day writing books like I was reading.

My dream evolved in college when I decided to give up on my dad's dream that I become a medical doctor and purse my interest in psychology.  For me this was my path to deeper spirituality and ministering to people.

One thing I know is that you love using your gifts.  Identifying your God-given spiritual gifts is another way of getting at your heart's desire.

Equipping Gifts: Help others become fully alive and mature like Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13)	Service Gifts: Minister to others who need the help that you can give (Romans 12:3-8)	Gifts of the Spirit: Reveal who God is to benefit others (1 Corinthians 12:7-11)	Spiritual Gift Definitions: As a member of the Body of Christ you have God-given gifts, which are things that you do well and love doing.  Using your gifts to honor God and help others is what brings you fulfillment in life.	Rank your gifts (up to 4)
Apostle			Starting a new community of Christ-followers
Evangelism			Inviting people to trust God through Jesus Christ
Pastor			Caring for the spiritual needs of a community
Prophesy	Prophesy	Prophesy	Preaching God's message to the lost or confused
Teaching	Teaching		Teaching God's wisdom to learners
	Serving		Recognizing and meeting people's needs
	Encouraging		Giving energy, hope, and courage to strugglers
	Contributing		Cheerfully giving money or resources for God's work
	Leadership		Governing people who follow you as you follow Christ
	Mercy		Showing empathy and kindness to the hurting
		Wisdom	Counseling strugglers to walk God's good path
		Knowledge	Understanding God's truth through study or intuition
		Faith	Confidently trusting God to intervene and accomplish His good purpose
		Healing	Healing the sick of body or soul with God's power
		Miracles	Demonstrating God's power to glorify Him
		Discernment	Discerning good from bad spiritual energies
		Tongues	Using a prayer language to praise and love God
		Interpretation of tongues	Interpreting other languages to benefit everyone

MEET A NEED THAT OTHERS HAVE

Next, let's look at the bottom right corner of the Ministry Triangle's "sweet spot": Being a blessing to others by meeting a need that they have.

Bruce Wilkinson said something else that is so true and so important to realize: "If you don't follow your dream someone's need won't be met."  What a powerful thought this is!  To realize that by being who you are - expressing your personality, doing what you love to do and are good at doing - you will meet other people's need!

Like my friend, the Christian Speaker I mentioned at the outset, your history of life experiences or the hurts and struggles you've overcome probably relates to your life calling.

Let me show you how true this is for me.  I grew up in a Christian home.  And while I thank God for parents who introduced me to Jesus at a young age, took me to church, prayed for me, taught me morality and spiritual disciplines, stayed married to each other, and put a high priority on family there were some important ways that the version of Christianity that they raised me with was unhealthy. 

I've said before, with tongue in cheek, that I should start a 12-Step group for "Adult Children of Evangelical Christian Families."  My mom dumped her emotional burdens on me.  My dad was anxious and angry much of the time.  They didn't know how to talk to me about me feelings.  I felt tremendous pressure to be strong and good and ideal for them.  I didn't feel free to be a child. 

And so the Christianity that was modeled to me felt performance-based and empty.  It didn't seem to work.  It was anxious and depressing and filled with anger and conflict.

Can you see where my passion for healthy Christian living came from?  Why I love to help people go deeper with God to experience His love, joy, and peace?  Why I would use Christian psychology as my vehicle for ministry?

God uses your story to bring you a powerful point of empathy and insight into something that people need.

Another way to help you embrace your life calling is to think about what you think other people need most. 

Maybe the need of others that you identified relates to your own story.  You probably have the most understanding and passion to help people in the ways that you've been helped!  As the Bible teaches, "The Father of compassion and God of all comfort.comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God" (2 Corinthians 1:3b-4, NIV).

HONOR GOD BY FOLLOWING HIS CALLING FOR YOU

Finally, let's consider the apex of this sweet "Ministry Triangle": God's plan.  I put this last in our discussion even though it really comes first because for most people I talk with the hardest part of discovering their life purpose is hearing God's call. 

Hearing God's call?  Isn't that just for people who are "called to be ministers or missionaries"?  Maybe you don't even believe that God still speaks to people today.  I believe He does.  He's spoken to me about my life calling in various ways.

As a college freshman I struggled with my decision to change my major from pre-med to psychology.  My dad was so unhappy with this that he avoided talking with me for three months.  He didn't know what I'd do with a psychology degree.  This was in the early 1980's, before psychology was popular as it is today with Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura and all.  More importantly, in my Christian family it was before Dr. Dobson was popular.  My Dad thought that psychology was for weird, crazy people.  Many people thought that way.

One day as I was crying out to God to speak to me about what I should do.  I picked up this tattered and marked up Bible right here.  And I did one of those "I'll just open the Bible and see where my finger lands.  That's what God is saying to me!" 

How many of you have ever done that?  You were so desperate to hear from God, so at a loss to figure out how He was leading you that you just randomly opened the Bible?

My finger landed on Isaiah 55.  "Come, all who are thirsty. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good. I will make an everlasting covenant with you.  a witness to the peoples, a leader.  The Holy One. has endowed you with splendor.  Seek the Lord while he may be found.  As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish. so is my word. will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands."

I'm living that passage.  Often in the last 20 years I've returned to Isaiah 55 to get back on track.

I've heard God speak to me in other ways too.  The summer before my senior year in college He spoke to me in a vision that changed my life.  At the beginning of the summer I had planned to take a 3-day retreat right before going back to school.  I needed to make decisions about my future.  What would I do with my psychology degree?  I thought I'd go to graduate school, but where?  So I had these days set aside for solitude, fasting, meditation, and prayer.  But then I had gotten beaten up and discouraged in my summer job working with the butchers in the meat market.  I didn't want to go on my retreat, but I went anyway.

My experience at the monastery was meaningful, but not revolutionary.  The next day was a turning point though.  I was in church singing, "How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news.  Good news.  Announcing peace, proclaiming news of happiness.  Our God reigns!  Our God reigns!" 

Suddenly, in my mind's eye I saw myself at the bottom of Mount Sinai, where Moses got the 10 commandments.  I wanted to climb to the top to meet with God, but I felt dejected, exhausted, and incapable.  I felt the sense of shame and isolation that I felt in the meat market.  But I was telling myself that I had to get up.  I had to work at it.  I had to try harder and do better.

Then my anxious, self-critical and self-demanding thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Jesus coming down the mountain.  He was looking at me with eyes of compassion.  He stopped when he came to me and picked me up and put me over his shoulders.  He started to carry me up the mountain.  A crowd formed and people started to insult him, spit at him, yell at him, and beat him.  I realized that I was like the cross on his back.  He was taking on himself the persecution I experienced and my sins.  He carried me all the way into the presence of God, to the top of the mountain.

And all I could see where his feet.  "How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news!"

Jesus reconciled me to God; He brought God's grace deep into my soul by carrying me and my pain.  Now He's using that to enable me to bring His reconciling grace to others.

In listening prayer many years ago I sensed Him say to me, "Bill your pen will become your pulpit."  But my dream to write best-selling books on Christian Spirituality was left on God's alter ten years ago.

He speaks to me through people like when He said to me through my wife Kristi almost ten years ago, "Now is the time to write the stories of your children's lives."  (Not write books on Christian Psychology and Christian Spirituality.)

Then a couple of years ago it all came together into a sharper focus for me, a more stirring passion, when I was inspired by Dr. Schuller to pick a life verse from the Bible.  After months of prayer and reflection my heart rejoiced over 2 Corinthians 5:20:

"We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making His appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."

That was it!  That's why I grew up in a depressed Christian home.  That's why even as a  teenager I loved reading books on Christian spirituality.  That's why I have gifts in teaching and wisdom.  That's why I wanted to become a Psychologist.  That's what my Mountain Vision was all about.  That's the message I'm to write and speak about.

And so I want for people to know and remember me as someone who brings God's life to the deepest places in their souls so that they make Jesus their Friend, Lover, and Passion.

Now let's bring all this together for you.  Let's hone in on your life calling from God.