When God Calls

Has there ever been a time in your life where God called you to make a decision that you didn’t want to make? When you’re praying about a choice and you want God to say one thing but you feel Him telling you to choose the opposite and you aren’t happy about it? This happened to me recently when I was praying about what to do regarding bowling.

After surgery, all my goals revolved around bowling. For example, “pick up a ball by this time,” “bowl a full game by this time,” “be back to normal bowling by this date.” But, after picking up a ball and attempting to bowl again, I realized it wasn’t as simple as accomplishing those goals. Yes, I may have picked up a ball and gotten through a full game but I was still in extreme pain while doing it. After trying to bowl the summer league, and realizing I could barely get through a game, let alone all three games, I started praying about if I should stay in bowling and push through the pain or not. Every week I decide what’s “worth being in more pain than normal” and bowling surprisingly didn’t make that list as much as I thought it would.

However, even with this realization, I still didn’t want to give up bowling. I mean, I’ve bowled competitively for 15 years, that’s a lot to decide to step back from. In fact, I’m going to be pretty transparent right now, I felt God telling me for awhile after I started praying about it to step back from bowling and I kept saying no, which I don’t do very often when God is calling me to something. But, I just wasn’t ready to step back from it, especially since I also felt like I was going to be letting people down if I did.

Nevertheless, after a lot of prayer and the continual feeling of God telling me to take a step back, I had finally gotten to the point of being “ready” to say okay. The same day I got to this point, I went to a worship night where they were talking about transitions in life and how God will transition you from one thing to another. Through this, I felt God saying, “I’m transitioning you from your focus being on bowling to your focus being on ministry.”

I’ve wanted to be in full time ministry for as long as I can remember but it’s been difficult to fully put all my attention on it because of everything else I have going on, one of the biggest things being bowling. Therefore, when I felt God telling me this, I realized that maybe part of God’s plan with the pain I have and the decision to quit bowling is so I can finally start to do everything in ministry that I feel I’m being called to, such as worship nights once a month or even more ministry events. I don’t know exactly what this will look like but I know it’s going to be great.

Once I finally decided to follow what God was calling me to, I also decided that I couldn’t worry about what people would think because I’m following God’s plan and that’s ultimately the only thing that matters. Thankfully, as it turns out, I’ve had several people tell me that I shouldn’t quit and that I’m making a mistake, but the people who matter most to me understand where I’m coming from and support me in my decision.

I don’t know if the pain will ever go away, I believe that that God can heal but that doesn’t mean that he will heal, and it’s okay if He chooses not to. I’m getting through it one day at a time, God is teaching me a lot, and I know that He is and will continue to use this for good. Who knows, I may go back to bowling at some point, this may be only temporary. But if I don’t, I know that God will replace it with something even greater.

If you feel God calling you to make a decision today, don’t say no, follow after what He is calling you to do. His plan will ultimately be way better than anything you can ever imagine; even if it’s something you never thought you would be doing, like giving up something (even temporarily) that you’ve done for most your life.

If you would like us to pray for a decision you’re trying to make, feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to pray for you.

Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”