Again we go deeper into discerning God’s Will.  It’s like going to a buffet with bacon.  You take a few pieces and they keep on bringing more out.  There’s just more and more to appreciate.

To recap, when figuring out God’s Specific Will for you, you need to understand how to figure out your callings.  Then you need to manage your callings. 

Now you need to take it one step further… You need to know where your callings intersect other people’s callings. Whoa Conrad, what in the world are you talking about now? I talked about little about this before with the Body of Christ, but now I’ll explain it a little more.

Remember how we need to match up our callings (Gifts + Talents + Resources = Calling) with open doors (in this devo)?…

Let’s say I have the GIFT of music and good looks, and have the TALENT of playing the piano and being good looking, and I have the RESOURCE of having Tuesday nights free because models don’t typically work on Tuesdays… You have the GIFT of leadership and music, and the TALENT of singing and public speaking and have the RESOURCE of Tuesday nights free. And we both go to the same church where there’s an open door for a new music worship team that practices on Tuesday nights. Your calling of being a worship leader and my calling of being a pianist intersect with that open door of the worship team.  You might not even know me.

But we both join up and now we have a… Common Calling (*cue dramatic music*)

A lot of these common callings people typically consider “ministries”.  Which really is a group of people coming together for a common spiritual goal. We see common callings all the time.  We just don’t see them that way. We enter a common calling the day we’re born… our family.  You are born into a group where you have the same spiritual goal – to build up your family to glorify God. If you do stuff at your church, you are apart of a common calling.  Being involved in some other ministry, being in a band, being on a pirate ship, etc., these are all examples where you are apart of a common calling.

One major common calling is marriage. When two people who’s callings are so similar and these callings intersect at so many places that it’s obvious that God is pushing them together.  That topic is so huge that I’ll devote a separate devotional for that one (and that’s right here, and more here).

So yes, things get much more in depth because now you’re not just trying to manage your callings correctly – but in some cases, if you are in leadership in one of these common callings (like parents, Pastor, worship leader, managers), you now have to manage other people’s callings as well.  Which means you have to be able to identify other people’s callings in order to manage them.

Managing my callings and other people’s callings?  Man, that’s a whole lot of stuff to do.

So what do we do?

We need wisdom to figure all of this out.  What are your callings, what are everyone one else’s callings?  How to they intersect?  And what am I supposed to do within this common calling? Yeah, that’s why there’s a book in Scripture (Proverbs) devoted to wisdom.  That’s why we need to pray for wisdom every day.  And that’s why there’s a cable channel devoted to Oprah.

Today’s Passage:

1CO 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. [13] For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 1CO 12:14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. [15] If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. [16] And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. [17] If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? [18] But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. [19] If they were all one part, where would the body be? [20] As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 1CO 12:21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” [22] On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, [23] and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, [24] while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, [25] so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. [26] If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Today’s Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness, faithfulness to figure out your callings and the callings of people with common callings so you can work more effectively together. Take time to pray: Pray for wisdom.  The wisdom to be able to identify your callings, the callings of others and the leadership to be able to manage other people’s callings when you are required to.

Today’s Quiz: