Frustrated in Christian Calling?

Being frustrated in your Christian calling—even for months or years—is probably a GOOD thing!

WHH-AAA-AAAAAT?!

Yes, indeed! Long-term frustration in your Christian calling is often God's signal that your current calling role is no longer a good fit and that He is preparing you for a next-level calling role.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (James 1:2-4, MSG)

Below are 9 questions to ask God to gain clarity and encouragement as God begins to stir new things in your calling.

By the way, your Christian calling doesn't have to be vocational Christian ministry or even volunteer church work. Your calling can be done through your job, your family, or any other part of your life. Explore Common Questions and Answers about Christian Calling.

9 Questions to Ask God About the New Thing He's Stirring in Your Calling

Prayerfully answer the 9 questions below about your Christian calling. Then, I'll provide three examples from my own life.

1. How do you describe your current Christian calling?

Briefly state what you believe to be your current calling (even if you know it’s no longer a great fit).

2. How does your current calling fit you well?

What parts of your current calling do you really enjoy and do very well?
What do you yearn to do more of?
What new things do you want to learn or start doing?

3. How does your current calling not fit you well?

What parts of your calling do you not like or not do well?
What do you want to do less of?
What do you want to stop doing?

4. What else do you dream of doing? (Don’t worry if the dream seems unclear or even impossible. All things are possible with God!)

Tell God in detail what you dream of doing, and ask Him what He thinks.
If you don’t yet have a clear dream, describe your yearnings as fully as you can. (No worries: examples below.)

5. What’s not fully clear about your dream?

If you have a particular calling role in mind that you’d love to do, what is still unclear about it?
If you don't have a particular calling role in mind that you'd love to do, what would help you get more clarity? (Examples: talk with God, online research, ask people.)

6. How has God been growing you so that you might eventually live your dream?

What skills has God been developing—perhaps throughout your life—that would help build your dream?
How has God been growing your character, grit, life balance, etc., so that you might live your dream?
What else in your past might God use to inspire and build your dream?

7. What would you need to do to prepare for your dream? (What is YOUR part of doing your dream?)

How do you need to learn and grow spiritually, professionally, and personally?

8. What seemingly impossible things would God need to do in order for you to fulfill your dream? (What is GOD'S part of doing your dream?)

What is beyond your own control or ability in accomplishing your dream?
What doubts do you have about your ability to carry out the dream, and what do you hear from God about that?

9. What does God want to say to you as you talk with Him about your dream?

Tell God all about your dream, including all eight items above. Ask Him if He does indeed approve of your dream. Often, when we become passionate about something, we discover that God has created us to fulfill those desires.
If you don't hear a clear yes or no from God about whether to pursue your dream—and you are truly open to His answer—He may be giving you the freedom to choose!

Grow your ability to have back-and-forth conversations with God.

To Go Deeper

See below for examples of how to apply the above chart to your calling.

To go deeper, click to learn how to write your Christian Calling Statement.

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How to Discern God's New Stirrings in Your Calling

To get ideas about how the nine steps above apply to your own Christian calling, see the three examples below of when I became frustrated in my Christian calling.

Example 1: Transitioning from College Chemistry Professor to Discipleship Pastor

1. How do you describe your current Christian calling?

I am a college chemistry professor and a leader and teacher in various roles at my church.

2. How does your current calling fit you well?

Both at work and at church, I love teaching, leading, and designing and teaching courses.
I love that God works through me to transform other people for His grand purposes.

3. How does your current calling not fit you well?

I still want to teach, lead, and design courses—but I want to help people grow spiritually, doing less teaching of college chemistry.

4. What do you dream of doing? (Don’t worry if the dream seems unclear or even impossible. More about that below.)

I want to be on staff at my church.

5. What’s not fully clear about your dream?

I don’t know what my church staff role might be.

6. How has God been growing you so that you might eventually live your dream?

I’ve been helping people grow in Christ and find their calling for decades as a volunteer church leader.
I’ve been doing in-depth Bible study and discipleship activities for decades.
God has honed my leadership, discipleship, organizational, and teaching abilities.
God has helped me overcome some character struggles.
God has granted me a good deal of success and influence as a volunteer in my large church.

7. What would you need to do to prepare for your dream? (What is YOUR part of doing your dream?)

I’m a scientist, but I want to work on a church staff. So I need to apprentice for spiritual, professional, and personal growth.
I need to talk to my lead pastor about my desire to be on the church staff.

8. What seemingly impossible things would God need to do in order for you to fulfill your dream? (What is GOD'S part of doing your dream?)

God would need to open the door to an apprenticeship with the pastor or someone else.
God would need to enable me to take a large pay cut when I stopped being a full-time college chemistry professor in order to work part-time at my church.

9. What does God want to say to you as you talk with Him about your dream?

I sensed God’s clear calling to vocational ministry during the afternoon of Palm Sunday.
God immediately opened the door to apprenticeship with my lead pastor.
Three years later, I went on staff at my church as a discipleship pastor. God provided increased finances at just the right time.

Example 2: Transitioning from Discipleship Pastor to Christian Life Coach

1. How do you describe your current Christian calling?

I am a discipleship and leadership pastor.
I coach a network of small group leaders and coaches.
I write curriculum, train teachers, and schedule and administer classes for our adult equipping track.
I lead two or three weekend Encounter God Retreats each year.

2. How does your current calling fit you well?

I love it that God works through me to transform people’s lives, through witnessing, making disciples, and helping people live their calling.
The tasks I enjoy most are curriculum development and coaching.

3. How does your current calling not fit you well?

I do a lot more administrative tasks than I want to do.
I want to spend a greater percentage of my time being creative.
I want more freedom to write and coach people.

4. What do you dream of doing? (Don’t worry if the dream seems unclear or even impossible. More about that below.)

At first, I had no idea what to dream of doing next.
Then I attended a breakout group at a Speak Up Conference and discovered Christian life coaching.
I immediately dreamed of starting my own business/ministry as a Christian life coach, helping people find and fulfill their Christian calling and grow in Christ.
Three months later, I enrolled in the premier Christian coaching school where a conference breakout-room teacher presented.

5. What’s not fully clear about your dream?

Who will come to me for coaching about Christian life and calling?
How will I find clients?

6. How has God been growing you so that you might eventually live that dream?

I’ve been coaching and helping people grow in Christ for a few decades.
People already come to me informally for this kind of guidance, and I seem to be very good at it.

7. What would you need to do to prepare for your dream? (What is YOUR part of doing your dream?)

I need to get excellent training and certification from a great Christian coaching school, so I can coach well and learn how to start and grow a coaching business and ministry.

8. What seemingly impossible things would God need to do in order for you to fulfill your dream? (What is GOD'S part of doing your dream?)

God would need to help me find clients who would pay me to help them find and fulfill their Christian calling and grow in Christ.

9. What does God want to say to you as you talk with Him about your dream?

I did not feel God’s strong calling to resign my church position in order to coach, which at first confused me.
Later, I realized that God trusted my maturity in Him, and He gave me the freedom to choose!
I enrolled in the premier Christian coaching school (Professional Christian Coaching Institute), and the breakout leader at the conference I attended became one of my teachers.
Two years later, I became a Certified Professional Life Coach.
I started the business that is also a ministry.
God immediately sent clients to me, first from my own church, then from all over the U.S., and a few from other countries.

Example 3: Expanding My Impact as a Christian Life Coach

1. How do you describe your current Christian calling?

I am a Christian life coach, specializing in helping people find and fulfill their Christian calling and grow in their uniquely personal relationship with Christ.
I do this through coaching over the phone/Zoom, writing blogs, and writing additional free resources.

2. How does your current calling fit you well?

I love every part of coaching and writing to help people find and fulfill their Christian calling and grow in their uniquely personal relationship with Christ.
I love it when God works through my coaching and writing to make a difference in people’s lives, who in turn make a difference in more people’s lives, multiplying the Kingdom impact.

3. How does your current calling not fit you well?

I can only coach a few people at a time.
I want to help larger numbers of people find and fulfill their Christian calling and grow in their uniquely personal relationship with Christ.

4. What do you dream of doing? (Don’t worry if the dream seems unclear or even impossible. More about that below.)

I want to write lots of excellent blogs and design lots of free and paid online courses to help thousands of people find and fulfill their Christian calling and grow in their uniquely personal relationship with Christ.

5. What’s not fully clear about your dream?

I don’t know how to find and reach the thousands of people online who would want to take my courses.

6. How has God been growing you so that you might eventually live that dream?

I’ve been designing courses all my life. I've always loved doing that, and I'm good at it.
I’ve been writing all my life. I love doing that, and I'm good at it.
God has been growing my ability to trust Him for the big things I can't do.
My website and blog are growing rapidly.
My website already has the capability and plugins to host excellent online courses.

7. What would you need to do to prepare for your dream? (What is YOUR part of doing your dream?)

Learn how to create and deliver online courses using the excellent website plugins that I already have.
Learn how to rank higher in Google searches, so that more people discover my resources.
Learn how to grow the list of people who receive my weekly blog.
Continue to improve my writing skills.

8. What seemingly impossible things would God need to do in order for you to fulfill your dream? (What is GOD'S part of doing your dream?)

God would need to help me reach thousands of people for courses and free resources. I know I'm not capable of doing that myself.
God would need to open many doors with influencers and churches. I know I don't have the broad influence to do that on my own.

9. What does God want to say to you as you talk with Him about your dream?

Again, God gave me the freedom to choose whether to go for my dream, which is reaching thousands of people with online blogs and courses about finding and fulfilling their Christian calling and growing in a uniquely personal relationship with Christ.
I took Shane Melaugh’s online premier courses, “Audience from Scratch” and “SEO Sprint,” to learn how to reach more people online. That is already happening.
I am improving my writing skills via Challenge 44, using resources from Shane Melaugh.
I plan to take an advanced writing course.
I have begun to design a course for future release.

7 Encouraging Takeaways

Below are 7 encouraging takeaways about how God works to stir the next season of our Christian calling.

1. It’s normal—even good—to get frustrated in your Christian calling.

Frustration with our calling is often God's signal that He is changing our Christian calling.

2. God never wastes anything.

My example: As a Christian life coach, I still use what I learned about leadership, teaching, writing, course development, administration, and people skills as a college professor and as a pastor.
You: God will use all of your skills and past experience in each next-level stage of your calling.

3. God sometimes tells us exactly what to do in our calling.

My example: I clearly heard God’s specific call at a specific time on a specific day to go into vocational Christian ministry at my church.
You: Be sure to ask God if He wants to change your calling in some way.

4. But sometimes, God wants us to choose what to do next in our calling!

My example: Sometimes, God gave me freedom to choose which direction to go with my calling. That was true when I became a college professor and a Christian life coach.
You: If you don’t hear a specific direction from God about your calling, He’s probably giving you the freedom to choose!

5. It’s normal—and faith-stretching—to realize that your dream for Christian calling is impossible.

Regardless of whether God directs you to your calling or gives you the freedom to choose, there will be many aspects of your calling that you cannot accomplish yourself.
You’ll grow tremendously in your relationship with God as you trust Him to do the “impossible” parts of your calling.
Examples of “impossible” things God will do: open doors of opportunity seemingly out of nowhere, increase your influence in ways that seem unexplainable, increase your finances to fulfill your dream at exactly the right time, and connect you with the right people (influencers, gatekeepers, mentors, partners, team members, customers, or clients) at just the right time.

6. You’ll need to make plans to grow in specific ways into your next Christian calling role.

Every time God changes your calling role or increases the scope of your calling, you’ll need to figure out how to grow your current skills and/or learn new ones.
You'll also need to grow to the next level in your uniquely personal relationship with God, so that you'll have the wisdom and grit to persevere at that next level.
You will not be able to transition successfully into a new role or a higher level of your current role without significantly increasing your growth and grit.
Ask anyone who has achieved success in Christian calling—whether in vocational ministry, the marketplace, or in volunteer positions—and he or she will tell you that it took a lot of work, along with a lot of seemingly impossible breakthroughs from God.

7. It’s wonderful to see God’s beautiful design through the decades of your Christian calling!

My example: All three of my Christian calling roles (described above) have these common threads: teaching, coaching, disciple-making, growing in wisdom, making an eternal difference in people’s lives through God’s love and power, and growing in my own uniquely personal relationship with Christ so that I can help others do the same.
What common threads do you see running through all of your past and present Christian calling roles?
How might God want to grow those common threads for even greater impact in your future next-level calling role?

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March 24, 2021