“How did you know you were called to be a missionary?”

I have heard this question many, many times, and I love to hear it. This question means most often means that someone is trying to find the will of God for their own life. They want to know the “secret” to hearing or recognizing the call of God. As we will find out in the story of the prophet Jonah, the call of God is often not what we think, but there are some markers that help us distinguish it.

The call of God is specific.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” Jonah 1:1-2

First, God spoke specifically to the specific man Jonah and gave him a specific assignment.

It was not optional for Jonah to participate, nor could he find someone else to do the job. It was his and his alone.  Next, God gave him “the word of the Lord”, or in other words, He told him what to say. Jonah could not just meander somewhere and say whatever he thought needed to be said. God gave him exactly what message to deliver. Lastly, God specifically told Jonah where to say it: the city of Nineveh. 

I can relate to this pattern in my own life. First, God spoke to me about serving Him in ministry. I can remember being on a mission trip in Peru in 2007, and through the influence of the missionary Rudy Johnson and his wife Lorraine, combined with the devotions and prayer time that week, God touched my heart.

It was on that trip that God began to call me with a simple question: “what are you doing with your life?” 

My life’s verse is Psalm 37:4 which says “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart”. That verse does not mean that if we give God a little time, He will bless us however we want to be blessed. What The Psalmist David is expressing in this verse is that as we give ourselves to God, as we delight in Him, as we spend time with Him, rejoice in Him, serve Him, that as we do those things, He will change our heart’s desires to match His desires for our life. And that is how God called me. He put a burning desire in my heart to serve Him in the ministry, to give all my efforts for Him and His gospel.

In the immediate months that followed, God gave me specifics as to my calling including the place to minister, specific ministries to be involved in, and He gave me a wife to serve alongside!

What is my point in sharing my story? To encourage you that God’s call is specific. It was specific for Jonah, it was specific for me, and God still speaks to people specifically today. We must learn to listen. God may speak to you about a specific person you need to share Jesus with. God may call you to a specific country to serve (it happened to me!). God may call you to a specific place to plant a church (it happened to me!).

God wants specific people for specific tasks. God has made you for a purpose, for a reason.

God has given you the abilities He has given you for a specific, special reason. He has gifted you so that you can use your gifts in His service. And the great thing is that God knows what needs to be done. God has the plan, He just wants servants to carry it out! It was God who saw the need in Nineveh, not Jonah. God looks at whole cities and sees their need! God is looking at places right now and He sees their need for the gospel, and He is calling people right now, today, to work the harvest. 

What is He calling you to do?

This post is part of a series on Finding God’s Will. Part 2 is here.

This post is an edited excerpt from the book Big Things.