Many people want to discover their gifts, strengths, and calling, but they do not know where to begin.
You may know that you are good at something. Yet, you may not know whether it is a gift, a strength, or part of your calling.
Perhaps people have told you that you are gifted. However, you may still wonder how to use those gifts.
You may even ask God, “What do You want me to do with my life?”
I understand that question.
Discovering your gifts, strengths, and calling is often a journey. God may not reveal everything at once. Instead, He may use your experiences, relationships, desires, opportunities, and seasons of growth to guide you.
Sometimes, God reveals your calling through the patterns He has already placed in your life.
Your gifts can be clues.
Your strengths can be clues.
Your desires can be clues.
Your opportunities can be clues.
Even the people around you can help you recognize what you cannot see by yourself.
So, how do you discover your gifts, strengths, and calling?
Let’s explore it together.
What Is the Difference Between a Gift, a Strength, and a Calling?
Before you discover your gifts, it helps to understand the difference between a gift, a strength, and a calling.
I like to explain them this way:
A gift is potential. A strength is developed capacity. A calling is divine direction.
A gift is something God has placed inside you. It is an ability or grace that can be used to serve God and bless others.
A strength is an ability you develop over time. A gift may come naturally, but it becomes a strength through practice, experience, discipline, learning, and growth.
A calling is bigger than one gift. It is the direction or assignment God gives your life.
For example, leadership may be one of your gifts.
With experience, you can develop that gift into a strength. You may become better at communication, decision-making, organization, problem-solving, and working with people.
Then God may call you to use those strengths to serve people, lead a ministry, mentor others, build something, or influence a particular community.
So ask yourself three questions:
What has God placed inside me?
What have I developed and become effective at?
What does God want me to do with what He has given me?
These questions can help you understand your gifts, strengths, and calling.
Look for Patterns in Your Life
One of the best ways to discover your gifts is to look at your life.
Look backward before you look forward.
Ask yourself:
- What have people repeatedly trusted me with?
- What do people naturally come to me for?
- What seems to come naturally to me?
- What problems do I enjoy solving?
- What activities give me a sense of purpose?
- What responsibilities keep appearing in my life?
Sometimes you are so familiar with your abilities that you do not recognize them as gifts.
Something that feels ordinary to you may be valuable to someone else.
I discovered this through leadership.
When I look back at my secondary school years, I can see a pattern that I did not fully understand at the time.
I became the head prefect of my school.
I was also chosen as the FCS president.
I became the Press Club president.
Later, I became the president of FECA, the Federation of Colleges Ex-Student Christian Association.
These were different responsibilities, but they had one thing in common:
Leadership.
I was not necessarily chasing leadership positions. People kept seeing something in me and giving me opportunities to lead.
Looking back, I realize those experiences were clues.
They showed me something about what God had placed inside me.
That is why you should examine the patterns in your own life.
Do not only look at your failures.
Look at what keeps appearing.
Sometimes your calling leaves clues long before you understand the destination.
Pay Attention to What You Are Drawn Toward
Your gifts are not always revealed through positions.
Sometimes they are revealed through what you deeply care about.
Ask yourself:
- What problems bother me?
- Who do I naturally want to help?
- What subjects can I talk about for hours?
- What activities make me feel useful and fulfilled?
- What do I find myself doing even when nobody is watching?
For me, there has always been a strong desire to communicate God’s Word, encourage people, and help people discover what God has placed inside them.
As I grew spiritually, that desire became stronger.
I began to see that leadership was not the entire picture.
There was something deeper.
I wanted to communicate.
I wanted to teach.
I wanted to encourage.
I wanted to see people understand God’s purpose for their lives.
Those desires became another set of clues.
Your desires alone do not prove your calling. However, when your desires align with your gifts, Scripture, opportunities, and spiritual growth, they are worth paying attention to.
Let Scripture Guide Your Calling
For me, one Scripture became especially significant.
“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me.”
Acts 1:8
That Scripture struck something deep inside me.
I began to see myself as someone God wanted to empower to be a witness.
I became convinced that God wanted to use my life to reach people beyond my immediate environment.
That Scripture became an important foundation for how I began to understand my purpose.
This is important when you are trying to discover your calling.
Your gifts should never be separated from God’s Word.
Your experiences need to be tested against Scripture.
Your desires need to be tested against Scripture.
Even words spoken over your life need to be tested against Scripture.
God’s calling will never require you to live contrary to His character or His Word.
Therefore, as you discover your gifts, stay close to Scripture and grow deeper in your relationship with God.
Pray.
Listen.
Study.
Allow God’s Word to shape your understanding of what God wants to do through your life.
Ask Trusted People What They See in You
Other people can play an important role in helping you discover your gifts and calling.
Sometimes people see things in us that we do not see in ourselves.
Looking at my own journey, many of my leadership opportunities came because other people trusted me with responsibility.
Later, my pastor approached me about the possibility of transitioning the church to me and asked me to pray about it.
I have also received words from men of God who spoke about ministry and leadership in my life.
Those experiences gave me another perspective.
They made me pay attention.
However, there is an important balance:
People can confirm your calling, but they should not become the source of your calling.
Your ultimate source must be God.
Someone can tell you, “You are called to do this.”
Still, you need to take that word to God.
Pray about it.
Study Scripture.
Examine your life.
Look at the patterns.
Seek wise counsel.
You can also ask trusted people:
- What strengths do you see in me?
- What do people naturally come to me for?
- Where do you think I am most effective?
- What responsibilities do you naturally see me carrying?
Their answers may surprise you.
Sometimes the things you consider ordinary are the very things other people recognize as your strengths.
If people consistently come to you for advice, wisdom or discernment may be one of your strengths.
If people naturally listen when you explain things, teaching or communication may be one of your gifts.
If people trust you to organize and lead, leadership may be one of your gifts.
If people feel encouraged after talking with you, encouragement may be part of what God has placed inside you.
Do not ignore these patterns.
However, do not make people’s opinions your identity either.
Take their observations to God.
What Can Prevent You From Discovering Your Gifts?
Several things can make it difficult to discover your gifts and calling.
Comparison
Comparison is one of the biggest barriers.
People look at someone else’s life and assume they should be doing the same thing.
They see someone preaching to thousands and think they should preach to thousands.
They see someone building a successful business and think they should build the same business.
They see someone becoming famous and assume that is what success should look like for them.
But God did not create you to become someone else.
Comparison can make you overlook what God has actually placed inside you. It can also be one of the signs you may be living outside your God-given purpose.
Fear
Another barrier is fear.
Some people recognize their gifts but are afraid to use them.
They think:
“Who am I?”
“What if I fail?”
“What will people say?”
“I’m not qualified.”
Fear can keep a person stuck for years.
Waiting for a Dramatic Sign
Some people are looking for one extraordinary experience that will tell them everything about their future.
God can speak through extraordinary experiences.
However, He can also reveal your purpose through ordinary experiences.
He can use your gifts.
He can use Scripture.
He can use opportunities.
He can use wise counsel.
He can use your burdens.
He can use service.
Pay attention to the patterns.
Chasing Success Without Surrender
Sometimes people know what they are good at, but they choose their direction based entirely on money, recognition, status, or applause.
The question is not simply:
“What can I become?”
The deeper question is:
“What does God want me to do with what He has given me?”
How Can You Discover Your Gifts and Strengths?
If someone asked me how to discover their gifts, I would tell them to start with three things:
Pray. Pay attention. Participate.
Pray
Ask God to reveal what He has placed inside you.
Our gifts ultimately come from Him, so we should involve Him in the discovery process.
Ask Him for wisdom.
Ask Him for direction.
Ask Him to reveal your strengths and weaknesses.
Ask Him to help you recognize the opportunities He is placing before you.
Pay Attention
Look at your life.
Look at your natural abilities.
Look at your recurring interests.
Look at the responsibilities people give you.
Look at the problems you care about.
Look at the things people consistently recognize in you.
Your history can contain valuable clues.
Participate
Serve.
Try things.
Volunteer.
Teach.
Lead.
Write.
Encourage.
Help people.
Join a ministry.
Take responsibility.
Sometimes you do not discover a gift by thinking about it.
You discover it by using it.
Do not wait for perfect clarity before taking action.
Start somewhere.
Do Not Despise Small Beginnings
You do not need a large platform before you can use your gift.
Sometimes your calling becomes clearer while you are faithfully serving a few people.
If you believe you can teach, teach someone.
If you believe you can lead, take responsibility for something.
If you believe you can encourage people, encourage the people already around you.
If you believe you are called to ministry, serve faithfully where you are.
You do not need thousands of people before your gift becomes valuable.
Some of the greatest opportunities to develop your gift may come when nobody is watching.
Small assignments can prepare you for bigger assignments.
So do not despise where you are because it does not look big enough.
Be faithful where you are.
Develop what God has placed inside you.
Serve the people in front of you.
And trust God with the platform.
Let God Open the Doors
Having a gift does not give you permission to promote yourself.
You do not have to force yourself into a position because you believe you are gifted.
Let God open the doors.
Your responsibility is to prepare yourself and remain faithful.
God’s responsibility is to create the opportunities and open the doors He wants you to walk through.
Sometimes the gift is discovered while serving.
Sometimes the platform comes after years of preparation.
Sometimes the assignment begins with one person sitting across from you.
Do not underestimate the small thing in your hands.
It may be connected to something much bigger than you currently understand.
What If You Feel Unqualified?
Do not wait until you feel completely qualified before you begin.
If God has placed something inside you, you may not feel ready when the opportunity comes.
Sometimes feeling unqualified is part of learning to depend on God.
When I look at my own journey, I can see that I was given leadership responsibilities before I fully understood what leadership meant or where it would eventually take me.
I learned by doing.
I made mistakes.
I gained experience.
I developed.
That is how many gifts become strengths.
A gift does not mean you are already fully developed.
God may give you the ability first. Then He may use experience, training, discipline, correction, and difficult seasons to develop it.
So do not compare your beginning with someone else’s maturity.
You are not supposed to start where they are today.
Start where God has placed you.
You do not have to be perfect.
You need to be willing, teachable, and faithful.
When God Calls You, He Provides
There is another lesson that has become very important to me.
When God sends a person, He also supports and supplies what is needed for the assignment.
Think about Moses.
When God called Moses to return to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of bondage, Moses immediately focused on his limitations.
He questioned his ability to speak.
He wondered why Pharaoh would listen to him.
But God did not tell Moses that he already had everything he needed.
God assured Moses that He would be with him.
That is powerful.
Sometimes God gives you an assignment that is bigger than your current ability.
You may look at yourself and ask:
“How am I going to do this?”
But God’s calling is not dependent on your strength alone.
God supplies grace for what He asks you to do.
This does not mean we sit back and do nothing.
We still prepare.
We develop our gifts.
We gain knowledge.
We build character.
We seek counsel.
We work hard.
We take action.
However, we do not have to believe that everything depends entirely on us.
If God has genuinely called you to something, He knows what will be required to accomplish it.
He can provide the people, opportunities, wisdom, resources, relationships, training, and connections.
Sometimes God does not provide everything at the beginning.
Sometimes He gives you enough for the next step.
Then, as you obey that step, He provides what is needed for the next one.
So do not reject a calling simply because you do not currently have everything required to fulfill it.
The fact that you do not have the resources today does not necessarily mean God has not called you.
If God sends you, He will accompany you.
If He gives you an assignment, He will give you the grace to pursue it.
Your responsibility is obedience.
Trust God for the provision along the journey.
What If You Still Do Not Know Your Calling?
Maybe you have read everything so far and still feel confused.
You may be thinking:
“I understand my gifts a little better, but I still do not know exactly what God wants me to do with my life.”
Do not panic.
You do not have to have everything figured out today.
Your calling is often discovered progressively.
You may know the next step without knowing the entire journey.
Take the step you know.
Use the gift you know you have.
Serve where you are.
Keep praying.
Keep studying Scripture.
Keep developing.
Keep listening.
Keep seeking wise counsel.
And trust God with the parts that are still unclear. If you are still seeking clarity about God’s direction for your life, take time to discover your God-given purpose.
The Bible tells us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
He cares about your life.
He wants you to live a purposeful and rewarding life.
He sees your desire to know Him.
He sees your obedience.
He sees your labour of love.
None of it is wasted.
Remember this:
You are not too young to discover and walk in your God-given assignment.
You are not too old either.
As long as you are alive, there is still purpose to pursue and something meaningful God can do through your life.
You have a purpose.
Walk in it.
You will find a deep sense of fulfillment for your soul.
Imagine Finishing Well
Imagine waking up one morning at 84 years old and looking back over your life with a smile.
You know you have fought the good fight of faith.
You know you have finished your race.
You look at your life with great excitement and say:
“It’s done.”
You know you’re ready.
You know you’ve won.
Not because you were the smartest person in your family.
Not because you were the bravest.
Not because you were the most educated.
Not because you were the most successful among your peers.
But because you obeyed the voice of God.
You laid your life down as a pencil in the hand of your Creator and allowed Him to write the story He intended to write through you.
That, to me, is what a truly purposeful life looks like.
At the end of the journey, the greatest question will not be:
“How famous did I become?”
Or:
“How much did I achieve?”
It will be:
“Was I faithful with what God placed in my hands?”
My prayer is that this will be our testimony:
“Lord, I discovered what You placed inside me. I developed it. I surrendered it to You. I obeyed Your voice. And I fulfilled the assignment You gave me.”
May that be our testimony.
Amen.
Final Thought: You Have a Purpose
Your gifts are not accidents.
Your strengths are not meaningless.
The desires God places in your heart are worth paying attention to.
The opportunities that keep appearing in your life may be clues.
The people who recognize something in you may be part of God’s process.
And the calling God gives you may be bigger than what you currently feel capable of doing.
So do not spend your life trying to become someone else.
Discover what God has placed inside you.
Develop it.
Surrender it.
Use it.
And trust the God who called you to lead you every step of the way.
You have a purpose. Now walk in it.
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