Calling, Freewill, & Tongue-Talking? 3 More Great Questions!

We're in Week 3 of our ASK ANYTHING series at our Church, receiving and responding to anonymously submitted questions. Here are three more great questions I'm going to attempt to respond to.

1. HOW DO I KNOW MY CALLING?

As a youth pastor and teacher to older teens for many years, this was one of the more frequent questions I was asked. Everyone wants assurance that they're moving in the right direction in life. Faith in an all-knowing, all-powerful, and yet personal God gives us the comfort of knowing that we have a purpose. We're meant for something. But finding out what that something is can be agonizing.

Here are 3 parameters I find helpful for determining what God has called you to accomplish in life:

A. BELONG TO GOD

Romans 1:6 says, "You also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ." The greatest calling on your life is not to someTHING but rather to someONE. If you find yourself struggling to know what direction to go in life, always move towards God. The worse thing you could do is figure it out without Him. Belonging to Jesus means prioritizing His active presence in your life. You can't determine what He is calling you to until you learn how to hear from Him. Seeking His Word and walking in fellowship with Him is how we become familiar with His voice. So, make this the number calling on your life.

B. WORK WITH GOD

Many people are naturally inclined towards a specific direction in life. They're passionate about a field or a subject and have no question about where they're going in life. If only it worked that way for everyone! Psalm 37:4 says to "delight thyself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." While that doesn't necessarily mean God will just give us whatever we want, it probably more likely means that He supplies the desires in our hearts. He plants passions within us. This doesn't mean all of our desires come from the Lord. Note, the verse says delight yourself, or align yourself with the Lord FIRST and then He will place the right desires within your heart. I often advise people to look for where their passions, opportunities, and abilities meet. What are you good at? What do you love to do? What do you have a burden for? What is in front of you right now? These are all important questions to be asking yourself in discerning the call of God for your life. Pay special attention wherever two or more of the answers overlap.

C. DO FOR GOD

We often overthink this. We hear others speak passionately about how they came to their mission in life and we feel the pressure to force ourselves into a similar journey. The reality is, we're not all stewarding some massive, storybook calling. But we are all called to bring glory to God. Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters..." That's the bottom line. You may not feel called to run the cash register at the grocery store, but if that's where you are right now, then do it for the glory of God. You may be a stay-at-home mom who is suffering withdraws from the corporate life, but if the Lord has called you to be home in this season, know that your contribution to His Kingdom is no less valuable.

I whole-heartedly believe the greatest key to unlocking our calling or to discovering what the Lord has for you NEXT is to embrace where God has you NOW. Give yourself to whatever is in front of you and the Lord will honor your work with His instruction.

2. WHY DID GOD HARDEN PHARAOH'S HEART?

One of my good friends and brother in ministry loves to ask this question at the most random times, just to watch me sweat.

If you're unfamiliar with this concept, here's your chance to keep scrolling if you don't want your head to hurt! In Exodus 4:21 it says, "The Lord said to Moses, 'When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.'" He repeats a very similar thing in Exodus 7.

Many are quick to site this as proof of pre-determinism; no one has freewill and God creates some people for destruction. I'm going to refrain from diving too deep into the "freewill vs God's sovereignty" debate because I'm going to attempt to tackle that in the last week of our series. I will, however, submit a spoiler: I believe both of these things live in the tension God assigned them to. I believe we have freewill to choose and act as we see fit and I believe there are times when God overrides our freewill for His divine purposes. How does that work? If we could comprehend it, we could comprehend God. But God, nor all of His ways, can be fully comprehended by His creation. However, as much as I'm tempted to say, "we just don't know" and move on, I do think there is some degree of understanding we can have here.

First of all there are multiple places in the scripture where it also states that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exodus 8:13, 32). Second, God tells Moses He knows Pharaoh will resist his demand to let the Israelites go. So, it's possible that because his heart was already hardened, God set out to prolong the process of deliverance in order to cement His power in the minds and hearts of His people and the surrounding nations. Remember, over 40 years later, when the Israelites were starting to go into the promised land, the whole land was afraid because they had heard about what the God of the Hebrews had done in Egypt.

The reality is, our sinful state makes our hearts hardened. What softens the heart is the hearing of the Word. The more we reject that truth, the more our hearts grow cold and unchanging. We are not responsible for understanding how God works, but we are responsible for allowing Him to work on our hearts.

In Romans 9 Paul speaks to this very tension when he says, "For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden."

What does that mean for every individual asking this question who is deathly afraid they may not have any choice in their own salvation? It means God is just and He will never do anything that is unjust. If you have the cognitive awareness to question your own freewill, then you also have the ability to call on the Lord and place your trust in Him. So do it! Don't get stuck trying to wrap your head around how God works. He's God, His ways may be, at times, mysterious to us but they are never wrong.

3. WHAT IS SPEAKING IN TONGUES?

Allow me to say it right up front: I pray in tongues on a daily basis. And for some, that might be surprising. For others, so what? There are a vast array of beliefs and doctrines when it comes to the practice and gift of speaking in tongues.

Let's start here: tongues is biblical. It's described and ever prescribed all throughout the Bible. In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul tells the tongue-talking church at Corinth that he speaks in tongues more than ALL of them! He also gives them several specific instructions about how the gift of tongues should (and should not) operate within their gatherings. Though many interpret his instructions to be an indictment against the use of tongues, he concludes his instructions in verse 39 with, "...be eager to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues." Regardless of what you feel or think about tongues, scripture points us to it often.

So what exactly is it? Well for starters it's a spiritual gift. And while it's true that not everybody has the same spiritual gifts, there does seem to be something peculiar about this one. In Acts 2 when the Church in Jerusalem was baptized in the Holy Spirit, one of the indicators was that they all began to speak and praise God in languages they did not know or understand. That's tongues. It's language, sometimes known, sometimes unknown, sometimes even unearthly (Paul mentions speaking in the tongues of angels).

In Jude 1:20 we are encouraged to "pray in the spirit" in order to "build ourselves up" in the Lord. Many argue that praying in the spirit doesn't necessarily mean praying in tongues, which I concede, however building oneself up is exactly what Paul says the gift of tongues does in 1 Corinthians 14.

Simply put, tongues is the intercession of the Holy Spirit through you. It's God going to God on your behalf. He is praying through you, for you! Romans 8:26 says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans." Paul refers to tongues as praying with "unintelligible words" which is of great benefit when you are praying over yourself, but less benefit when attempting to minister to others.

Therefore, the Bible teaches that the gift of tongues paired with the gift of interpretation is a powerful thing in a gathering. Tongues alone, however, serves to bring edification to the individual. For that reason praying in tongues is a valuable part of my personal life. When I'm lost for words or when I just want to be close to the Lord, I pray in tongues for self-edification.

How do we receive this gift? Just ask. Seek the Lord for it. Scripture tells us that we not only CAN seek for spiritual gifts, but that we SHOULD (1 Corinthians 12:31)! I don't like the idea of putting emotional pressure on someone or making people feel bad/lesser if they haven't spoken in tongues. I don't teach tongues as the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit but simply an evidence, one of several. I do, however, encourage people to seek this gift as well as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When you pray in your home or during your daily encounter, prioritize moments of praying out loud! The Lord won't speak through closed lips.

I find many people are simply uncomfortable with the idea of tongues and therefore are closed off to it. Perhaps it sounds, looks, or feels ridiculous to you, but isn't that kind of the point? In order to lean into the Lord, our pride must die. Our dignity can't be an idol. By no means am I saying to act foolish on purpose until you make something happen, but I would encourage you to have an open heart, open lips, and surrendered mind to whatever the Holy Spirit has available for you.

Hope this helps!