CHAPTER 4

When God Is Preparing You

“And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep...” 1 Samuel 17:34 (KJV)

David stood before a king preparing to face a giant, and part of his preparation had happened in a field with sheep, a lion, a bear, and long hours when nobody was watching. He was carrying the responsibility already in his hands.

Preparation often looks ordinary. The job, class, volunteer role, years raising children, person we served under, or small responsibility nobody considered important may teach things we understand only later.

Preparation Is Not a Waiting Room for Real Life

The preparation season is still life. There are people to love now, responsibilities to carry now, character being formed now, and things to learn now.

God Often Develops Character Before Capacity

Knowledge, money, connections, skill, training, and experience matter. But God also cares about who will carry the assignment. Can we be corrected? Wait? Repent? Receive help? Lead without controlling? Remain close to God when the work succeeds?

Anointing Does Not Eliminate Development

David was anointed in 1 Samuel 16:13 (KJV) before he sat on the throne. Calling did not eliminate process.

God May Give the Burden Before We Understand the Assignment

God may genuinely stir a desire to serve, build, lead, write, teach, move, help, or prepare. We may be right about the stirring and still wrong about our interpretation.

The seed may be from God while our picture of the mature plant is our own.

Abraham Had a Promise and Still Misinterpreted the Method

The promise was real. Human interpretation and human method became attached to it. Discernment asks not only, Did God put this in my heart? but Which parts did God actually give me, and which parts did I fill in myself?

Hold the Interpretation With Open Hands

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 (KJV). We can ask God to correct our interpretation, change the picture, close a door we attached His name to, and show us where desire filled in details He did not give.

What If the Desire Was Right but the Picture Was Too Small?

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to help people. When I married at nineteen, I thought I could see how that desire might take shape through horses and equine therapy.

Life did not unfold according to that picture. There were liability concerns, bills, jobs, little ones to raise, and responsibilities. After a second divorce, I found myself raising five children and often simply trying to keep going and trust God to provide.

I would not pretend every painful thing happened because God needed to teach me a lesson. There are things I never would have chosen. But looking backward, I can see that God never lost sight of the desire He had placed in my heart.

I thought the calling was about the horses. Maybe the horses were simply the way I understood the desire at nineteen. The deeper desire was: I want to help people. I want to understand them, meet them in difficult places, and help them grow and heal.

Through the life I actually lived, God taught me things I could never have learned by simply imagining someone else's pain. Not by making every painful thing good, but by refusing to let it be wasted.

What If I Had Limited God to My Dream?

What if I had decided that if I could not do this with horses, I could not fulfill what God put in my heart?

I did not need horses or a facility in order to sit with someone who is hurting. And now I am writing. Those words can become a website and a book. A person I may never meet can read them from somewhere I may never go. A devotional can walk beside someone through a season of life.

Something I once pictured happening in one physical place can now, Lord willing, reach people anywhere.

Maybe someday horses will still be part of something God allows me to do. Maybe they will not. I do not have to know.

The horses were never God. The dream was never God. The method was never God. God is God.

God, I believe You put this desire in me. I give the desire back to You. You decide what it becomes. Use the horses if You want. Use the website. Use the books. Use a conversation. Use something I have not even thought of yet. Just do not let me become so attached to my picture that I miss Your direction.

A Right Calling Still Requires Daily Direction

Because I have always wanted to help people, there have been times when I saw someone struggling and thought: I have room. I can help.

At different times, I opened my home to women carrying difficult histories and trauma. Their coping patterns were not always healthy. Bringing those struggles into my home did not automatically create healing. Sometimes the normal activity of a household and family became unnerving during triggers, and in some situations the environment may have helped keep unhealthy cycles going.

My family was living there too. That matters.

Knowing the direction God has placed on your heart is not the same as knowing what He wants you to do in every situation.

Capability is not calling. Calling does not automatically make every method wise.

Helping Can Become Harmful Without Boundaries

Good intentions need discernment. Helping without wisdom can hurt both people. We can overextend, make our family absorb consequences, create dependency, carry another adult's responsibility, or keep adjusting boundaries because we are emotionally invested.

“Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Matthew 10:16 (KJV).

Compassion needs wisdom.

Boundaries Can Protect the Calling

I can help with this but not carry that. I can walk beside you but not make your decisions. I can care about your trauma without allowing harmful behavior. I can love you and recognize that my home is not the right environment for what you need.

Sometimes recognizing our limits is humility.

Calling Does Not Replace Listening

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:” John 10:27 (KJV).

Knowing the general direction does not mean we can stop asking for directions.

Purpose Led Means Continually Led

That may be one of the most important meanings behind the title of this book and the name behind the ministry, website, and discipleship work.

Purpose led is not simply discovering what God wants us to do. It is learning to live led by God.

God may show us the direction, and we still need Him for the steps. He may give the burden, and we still need Him for the boundary. He may give the gift, and we still need Him to tell us where and how to use it.

Abiding Helps Us Recognize His Voice

“Abide in me, and I in you...” John 15:4 (KJV). Abide. Hear. Follow.

As we learn God's Word, pray, surrender, listen to the Holy Spirit, obey what He has shown us, and walk with Him over time, we become more familiar with what agrees with His character.

Purpose Led Is a Way of Living

The goal is not to identify one calling and then accomplish it without God. The goal is to become people who know God well enough to keep following Him.

The calling does not replace the relationship.

Preparation Can Protect the Calling

Training, policies, experience, systems, starting small, and being supervised can protect what we hope to carry. Faith and planning are not enemies. Luke 14:28 (KJV) reminds us to count the cost.

Sometimes God prepares us through someone else's vision. Following is preparation for leading. Waiting exposes motives. Sometimes preparation is healing. We do not have to be completely healed to serve, but we need enough self awareness to recognize what belongs to us and what belongs to the person we are serving.

Preparation can look like failure. We can say, I got that wrong. What can I learn now? God can redeem mistakes without needing us to rename them.

Preparation includes learning what not to carry.

“Who hath despised the day of small things?” Zechariah 4:10 (KJV).

Small can be mercy.

Faithful Here

Maybe the question is simpler: Can I be faithful here?

Learn what is here to learn. Carry what is here to carry. Release what is not ours. Receive correction. Practice. Rest when God says rest. Move when He says move. Keep listening.

Knowing the direction does not mean we can stop asking for directions.

The calling does not replace the relationship.

Preparation is not the absence of purpose. Sometimes preparation is the purpose of the season.