Amy Carmichael has some great advice for those of us who are discerning a call.
She worked for 55 years as a missionary in southern India, rescuing children from domestic and sexual slavery to an immoral temple system.
During this time she grew a team of people to oversee this work of raising hundreds of children. She needed people to come and help in looking after the children, to provide their education, to run the hospital, and get involved in the myriad initiatives she pioneered at the Dohnavur Fellowship.
To find these people she would constantly pray for the right team members. But in these prayers she was very particular that those who were discerning a call to come and work with her might be sure that it was God speaking to them.
We pray for the call, the thrusting forth. Should any read this who are at the parting of the ways, I want to say very earnestly, ‘Be sure of your call.’ Our Lord deals variously with souls, but the soul must be sure that He and He alone is the Chooser of its path.
Do not feel the call of God is always as it were audible. It is more the quiet sense of peace that comes when one is on one’s knees before Him and as one goes about one’s daily work; peace, but also outward attack. Has anyone come to us unattacked? I do not know of any. Certainly all who are to bear the burden of leadership know it.
A call is a quiet, steady pressure upon the spirit from which there is no escape. It is an assurance, a conviction. Then there is the leading of God at the other end. If both coincide and the way is opened, let the soul go in peace.
Are you struggling in discerning a call from God? Have you experienced a quiet sense of peace, outward attack, and a steady pressure from which there is no escape? These are all great indications of God’s call upon our lives.
Mark Williamson works as a director of One Rock. He’s an experienced leadership trainer, author of biographies on John Wesley and William Wilberforce, and is also passionate about praying for London. He enjoys good films, good food, and going for long walks with his wife Joanna. You can follow him on Twitter @markonerock.