New Hope Now

William Gaultiere, Ph.D.
Director of New Hope & Psychologist with ChristianSoulCare.com

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." God has a specific calling for your life, a unique and wonderful plan for who you're to be. Discovering and living your God-ordained purpose is the way to begin your new year.

I didn't just make this up! This is what the Bible says. As one example consider what God said to Jeremiah (and through Jeremiah to all His children):

God Still Calls People into His Service

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 to his mind:

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

"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."

What God did for Jeremiah and for my friend he's done for me. And he'll do it for you too! Why? Because it's who God is and he invites and empowers us to be like him. Let me explain.

I want my life and relationships to follow the pattern of the Trinity: Father-Son-Holy Spirit in wonderful community, finding their joy in loving and honoring one another. And then the most amazing part is that God invites us to join his community! The Father runs to welcome us home, the Son enters into our humanity and all its struggles, and the Spirit moves inside our souls forever. By faith in Christ we receive his gracious favor and we come alive.

Jesus' prayer for us that we join the community of the Trinity and model our relationships after theirs (John 17-18). He is showing us the way to live a joyful life: live and relate to others in love like God does. Since "God is love" (1 John 4:8 & 16) God is just being himself when the members of the Trinity love one another and us. God is as genuine as genuine can be which is why he identified himself to Moses as "I AM." I believe it's the same for us. God created each of us unique and with a wonderful purpose in mind. We're to express who we are with him and others genuinely and lovingly.

Bruce Wilkinson in "The Dream Giver" 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 this three-way alignment of the "Ministry Triangle" (above): using your gifts to love others and honor God!

Now, 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. (You'll find it helpful to discuss these questions with someone who knows you well and can help you answer them.)

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.

Let's start by considering the bottom left corner of Ministry Triangle's "sweet spot." 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. This is what the Bible teaches. For instance, 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.

Here's how it worked for me. 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 further in college when I decided to give up on my dad's dream that I become a medical doctor and purse my interest in Christian Psychology. For me this was my path to deeper spirituality and ministering to people.

Along with my training in college and graduate school I needed to identify and develop my spiritual gifts in order to accomplish the dreams of my heart I needed. Have you ever taken a spiritual gifts test? Or just prayed over the passages in the Bible that list the gifts that God gives to people? To make this easier I've compiled and described the 18 spiritual gifts referenced in three different lists by the Apostle Paul: "Equipping Gifts" (Ephesians 4:11-13), "Service Gifts" (Romans 12:3-8), and "Gifts of the Spirit" (1Corinthians 12:7-11). You'll find this resource in a checklist called "Identifying Your Spiritual Gifts."

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 in many ways. 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?

It's the same for you. God uses your life story - your journey of healing, growth, or recovery - to bring you a powerful point of empathy for and insight into something that people need. 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).

What's your story? How has God brought healing, recovery, growth, joy into your life?

What do you think people need most? What issue in people's lives are you most concerned about?

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. God speaks to ordinary people like you and I. We just need to learn to listen.

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 (especially Christians) thought that way back then.

One day as I was crying out to God to speak to me about what I should do. I picked up the same tattered and marked up Bible that I read today. 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!" Have you 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 when I've gotten lost in my life I've returned to Isaiah 55 to get back on track.

I've heard God speak to me in other ways too. 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 when speaking through my wife Kristi I heard, "Now is the time to write the stories of your children's lives." (Not write books on Christian Psychology and 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 the path of joy for me that Isaiah 55 was pointing me to. 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.

How do you want people to remember you? What do you want people to say about you after you've died?

What do you believe that God wants you to do with your life? How would you describe your life purpose in a sentence? What verse in the Bible expresses what you want to do with your life?

It's so helpful to identify your calling in the form of a life mission statement or a life verse from the Bible. Don't think of this as confining, but as defining. It's like the rudder to a sailboat that steers you through the waters and storms of life. It's like birds that follow their instinct to fly back home for the spring mating season we need to hone in on our life's purpose. When you know what you're all about it makes setting life priorities and goals so much easier. It guides you in what to say yes to and what to say no to - and to do it with confidence. It gives meaning and passion to what's important to you.

The divine calling and purpose that I'm talking to you about here is an overarching umbrella for your whole self and your whole life. Underneath this purpose you may have a number of dreams, large and small. And each dream will need to have a number of goals set and realized in order for you to achieve that dream. But everything you spend significant time and energy on ought to fit into your life mission. It gives meaning to your gifts and desires, your pain and concern for other people's needs, and it honors God.

William Gaultiere, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the New Hope Crisis Counseling Center at the Crystal Cathedral where he's trained over 1,000 people in Christian counseling skills. He offers "Christian Soul Care" as a Clinical Psychologist and Spiritual Director in Irvine, CA and on his website, ChristianSoulCare.com, which features encouraging articles on Psychology, Family, and Christian Spirituality and a monthly e-mail devotional.


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