Only God knows your life’s calling, but other people may push you into a calling contrary to His will. While fulfilling God’s calling leaves you joyful and fulfilled (most of the time), other people’s false calling for your life leaves you frustrated and empty. Satan may use people to direct you away from God’s calling. Satan may use other tactics to deceive you into the wrong calling or make you discontented when you are living in God’s calling. Please join me as I explore Satan’s tricks to derail our true calling and joy.
Jesus called Satan the Prince of this World (John 14:30), and he now influences our thoughts. Before Adam and Eve fell into sin, Satan could not directly influence their minds. Satan did not rule the world, so Adam and Eve lived peacefully and joyfully, fulfilling God’s calling for their lives (Genesis 1:28b “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”) In a sense, Satan could not command humans to sin. He needed their permission, and he could not enter their thoughts.
But once Adam and Eve sinned, they gave Satan control of the world on a grand level and access to their minds on a personal level. Today, Satan can plant an ugly idea into a gal’s mind and tempt her to believe it is her own. Since we believers do not have to obey Satan, he tries to convince us that his lies are our own legitimate thoughts. Then we may doubt or disregard God’s calling. For example, in 1 Chronicles 21:1, “Satan incited David,” to take an illegal census. Furthermore, in Acts 5:3, Peter told Ananias, “Satan has filled your heart,” and this was why Ananias had lied. In Mark 8:33, Jesus said to Peter, “Get behind me Satan,” because Satan had inspired Peter to speak against Jesus’ need to go to the cross. Even more scary, John 13:2 & 27 said that “Satan entered Judas,” and inspired him to betray Jesus. In all of these cases, Satan put the idea into a human’s mind, unlike Eden, when Satan had to speak audibly to Adam and Eve. Each of the people in my examples chose to listen to Satan and not separate their own ideas from the evil ones Satan placed there.
In all of those cases, the people had a free will to NOT choose Satan’s way, but they chose it anyway, to their own detriment. In 2 Cors. 10:5, Paul tells his readers “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” When Satan influences people’s minds, they no longer listen to the Holy Spirit but listen to what Satan suggests. This may sound scary and extreme, and in fact, Satan rarely uses such extreme methods to derail us from our calling. Since believers usually recognize the extreme examples I gave in that last paragraph, Satan will use subtle ways to influence us. He will discourage people from God’s calling by telling them they are not wise enough, not brave enough, or just not gifted enough to do what God has called them to do. In some cases, people will take a job that is not what God intended for them. They will not be doing any evil work—just not the work God had intended for them to fulfill. Throughout their working lives, they will not feel content. They will not live as joyfully. And their witness for Christ will not be as effective. But they will not recognize the derailment, of the dream they once had, as Satan’s trick.
Satan uses a similar tactic by presenting our fleshly desires as dreams for our true calling, but they are not true. Satan may make us believe we really want that life and job. This may include a relationship with someone Jesus does not want us to partner with. It may be in a place where Jesus does not want us to live. We may believe we are living out our dream, when we are actually defying God’s will for our best interests. And this “dream” life will also feel empty, because we are running from the good life God actually wanted for us. If we cannot achieve it, we may strive and fight for this so-called dream (really a nightmare in disguise) and feel anger with God and tell him he is thwarting us from true happiness. Actually, if he is thwarting us from that dream, he is protecting us, but Satan will blind us to not recognize this truth.
Other people have ideas of what they want us to be. I shared in earlier posts that when I worked for a Christian mission, some men did not want to do their own office work. More than one man told me that he thought God’s calling for my life was for me to give up my writing and become his secretary instead. I am glad I was grounded in God’s direction, and I recognized this was deceit and greed on behalf of these men. They wanted me to sacrifice my dream and my true calling to make their lives more convenient. God never calls us to become someone else’s slave so their lives are more convenient.
This is especially true in marriage. I am horrified by men who say that after marriage their domestic life has become so easy, while their wife, who also works full time says her domestic life has become exhausting. These men want to go out and have fun after work with guy friends, because they no longer clean their own messes or cook their own food or even grocery shop. But their wives have to give up seeing their friends and family to try to carry what should be both spouses’ work in the home. This is never God’s will. God never intended one spouse to be the slave so the other could go off and act like a bachelor. And that life is a nightmare, not a dream, and not God’s will. Remember that men are to daily lay down their lives for their wives, the way Jesus served the church. Two women washed Jesus’ feet, but Jesus washed 12 men’s feet. Jesus was a servant, and a good husband must be a servant too. If both spouses consider themselves servants, then they will share in the work, especially when the wife works outside the home.
Sometimes parents want a “mini-me” of themselves. My mom enjoyed this with my younger sister, who was so much like my mom. Unfortunately I was very different, and my mom had a hard time understanding me. But I am thankful that she did not demand that I become a nurse like she was. That was never my calling. There were other areas where she did force me to do things that were completely contrary to my nature, like enrolling me in our high school’s military style marching band. I have no military leanings in my temperament, and I also lack rhythm. I was a disaster in this band, and the band leader often yelled at me, which made things worse.
After a year of that, I had to beg and beg until my mom finally relented and let me take a typing class instead of that marching band, but since she had already enrolled me in the military marching band, I missed some of the earliest classes in typing which made the class harder for me to catch up.
Some parents are much more forceful, and they demand their children enroll in the sports they want them to play in. They demand their children go to college and take the courses the parents expect, and they demand their children go into the career the parent favors. They may even demand their child marry someone who God has clearly not called for that child. All of these demands are nightmarish, and completely out of God’s will. But I have met so many people who have lived out those nightmares. These young people never felt close to God either, because they did not feel his heart. They felt the harsh attitude of these demanding parents. Those parents misrepresented the Lord who guides us tenderly to the path he wants us to follow. Satan uses those parents’ selfish sin nature to corrupt what God actually wanted for their children.
God gives us natural abilities and desires, so we can use them for his glory, and this brings us joy. This is beautiful for Christian professionals, whether they are architects, doctors, secretaries, musicians, painters, biologists, lawyers, and those in other fields. Yet when you see secular people who are highly gifted, but they do not love God, there is another irony. In this case, they are using the talents God gave them, but they are doing so for their own glory. As a result, they are still not living out the calling God had for them. I have heard so many successful secular people, (often in the entertainment and sports industries), say that despite their millions of dollars of earnings, they are miserable and feel their lives are meaningless. There is a reason. They are not living out God’s calling for their lives. They are using their talents for their own glory.
In all of these cases, whether a gal does not use the gifts God gave her, or if she uses those talents for the wrong purpose, she will not feel joyful nor fulfilled. It is only when a woman uses the talents God gave her, and uses those talents for God’s glory (including in a secular field) that she can feel fulfilled. Whether she is in Christian ministry or secular work, when she does this work to honor God, she will feel joy in her calling (most of the time—there are always seasons of difficulty.) But Satan does not want you to know this truth, so he will make your life’s path murky, so you cannot figure out what God truly wants you to do.
The Holy Spirit and honest friends can help guide you into the right calling. In my case, I still wanted to please my mom, so I went into the sciences in college, but I became miserable. My dad reminded me how much I enjoyed writing, and I changed my college major to that field. Then I found my joy again. God will use whatever course and which ever person he needs, to help guide you, if you are open to that leading. Then he will get you into your life’s true calling. You just need to be alert to Satan’s tricks along the way so you do not suffer derailment from those dreams.
Thanks for joining me in this week’s post. I pray I’ve blessed you, and I welcome hearing from you to learn about your life’s journey too!