Why didn't anyone tell me?

We were ready for a new chapter in our lives. My wife and I had been preparing for this for some time, as I had been in the finance/banking industry for a good 16 years and like Elijah, it had felt as if the brook was truly drying up. When Cherith dried up, the Lord was preparing his heart for moving on.

I had graduated in law the year before and we were wondering if the Lord meant to open up a pathway there although I held a secret longing in my heart to more actively be engaged in the Lord's work.

Various people had been praying for us that we would have clarity on the next move when suddenly I received a call from chairman of the elders at Rutland St Chapel in Christchurch if I would engage in discussions with them about possibly picking up the role of Teaching Elder in the new year (1991).

What a thrill to receive that call. God was on the move and it might even be in the direction I had long longed for but had never thought would ever be possible. Others were also excited for us but I desperately needed to know that this was God. I am aware “the heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). What if this possibility loomed large because I wanted it for myself, and God wasn't even in it? I was aware that there are many “bypath meadows” (ref. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress) in this life and what if this was one of them?

A new song

My mind began to search frantically down the corridors of everything I had ever heard (and even taught) about knowing the Lord's guidance:

• Are we being led towards this by circumstances? But what about my just graduating in law?
  
  
• What are our trusted friends saying? What is their counsel?
  
  
• What has been the fruit of my preaching in the past?,
  
  
• Aren't we supposed to have a peace around this? I wasn't sure I had this but I was so determined to know the Lord's will in this and not get it wrong
  
  
• What am I getting in my daily devotions? The main sense I had had in this was wait/ be ready/ something significant was about to happen
  
  
• Do I have any inner impression from His Spirit?
  
  
• What about dreams? God-given dreams is something I had relegated to the lives of Joseph and Daniel, and the book of Acts. It was something I was not really familiar with
  
  
• What am I hearing from sermons in the pulpit?
  
  
• Isn't this an 'open door' and shouldn't I just walk right through it?
  
  

Then I got it. I read Garry Friesen's book Decision making and the will of God¹. Friesen opened up something to my heart which should have been so plain. How had God gifted me?

Follow his drift. “…in my classes at Multnomah School of the Bible, I meet men and women who are moving in the opposite direction. Though successful in business or some other secular vocation, many of these students came to recognize that the Lord was using them more outside of their job than in it. Now they are studying the Bible to become better equipped to do full-time the ministries which the Lord has been blessing in their 'spare' time. Eventually, if they continue on in the present course, they will become Bible teachers, pastors, youth workers and missionaries. Their change in vocational direction was brought about by the same question: 'How can I best serve the Lord with my gifts and abilities?' ”

Friesen opened up something to my heart which should have been so plain. How had God gifted me?

This was me! Successful in my daily working life, a department manager in a private bank. Yet most weekends were spent studying and delivering biblical teaching, an exercise in which I felt my greatest desire and experienced my greatest fulfilment.

An opportunity was presented to fly down and meet with church leadership. Leading up to this, repeatedly I came across 1 Tim.4.14: “Do not neglect the gift that is in you.” Foster it, cultivate it. And again 2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word!”

The verse goes on to say convince, rebuke, exhort, teach.

Most especially, Ephesians 4:11,12 kept knocking at the door. “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying (building up) of the body of Christ…”

Take note of how you are “wired” – do not ignore your DNA.

The desire was there, the opportunity was there, my wife supported wholeheartedly (another good sign). She had seen that the job description was a real fit for me. The Word of God seemed to be clear, and the guidance had a new strain to the song > how was I gifted?

Dear reader, please take note of how you are “wired.” Do not ignore your DNA. How has God gifted you? Embrace the unencumbered joy and delight that you find in ministry, whatever that ministry is. Someone once said, “a little girl skipping is the picture of wisdom.”

There is a lot of truth in a little line I once caught in the movie, Along came a spider. “You do what you are!” Our doing, our serving humanity around us, flows out of our being, who we are, who God made us to be.

Our passion may flow along different branches of the river through varying seasons in life but the river doesn't change.

Milk the whole experience of your life and look for God's thumbprint. What you like doing at 25, you'll like doing at 65. It's who God made you to be. Your gifts are your life. If you betray your gifts, you betray yourself. Celebrate who you are at your best and you celebrate the Giver of the gift. Remember a peacock that rests on its feathers is just another turkey.

The truth touched home. I was on my way.

¹ Garry Friesen with J. Robin Maxson p.340 Decision Making & the Will of God A Biblical Alternative to the Traditional View
Multnomah Press 1980