When you arrive at the end of these posts there will be a check list to help you think through all that Spurgeon said in the above paragraph. Spurgeon had a school called the Pastor’s College. He trained many men for the ministry and there is much wisdom in what you just read.

As you seek to know God’s will for your life or if he is calling you to the mission field, we point out to you that your personal relationship with God is where it all begins. If you have an on again off again relationship, you shouldn’t expect much direction. As you deepen your relationship with God and love him more every day, then you will obey him more and more. As you trust, love and obey, you will want to please him more every day. That is the first step in knowing what God wants to do with your life.

The challenge is to consider how God has gifted you. He will not call you to do something he hasn’t gifted you to do. If God made you a woman, then he didn’t call you to preach or lead a church. He made you to be the perfect helper for your husband, “help meet!” That is just basic Bible understanding. I Timothy 2:12. So look over your gifting. Check out your abilities God gave you. Are you able to talk to people? Can you teach and preach effectively?

Check out the qualifications found in Timothy 3 and Titus 1 to be sure that you are qualified to be in the ministry. We desire the office of bishop, but to be sure we qualify, he gave us a list to study.

Each day, serve God to the best of your ability. Do what he wants you to do today and do that tomorrow and the next day. If you live this way, then his will clears up for you. Remember Matthew 6:34, “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” Just deal with today and tomorrow will take care of itself.

Prepare to do whatever God will have. Take every ministry opportunity that presents itself. You will learn and receive training, but you will also find out where you might fit in. Do what is at hand and what you know to do. God will clarify the rest of it.

If any job is beneath you, then you are not missionary material. We recently heard of a young preacher that said that he couldn’t help moving the chairs in the church because he doesn’t like to sweat. He is probably not qualified to be in any role in church leadership.

Our job is to do all we know to do based on the word of God. We will serve and obey him and trust that he will show us whenever he is ready.

Let us share a few verses with you that might be instructional. We start with the verse that we think most impacts this question. Paul said in

I Corinthians 9:15 “But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me: for it were better for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void. 16 For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.”