Travis Collins - Directionally Challenged: How to Find and Follow Gods Course for Your Life

Directionally
Challenged

Travis Collins has been a good friend to me personally and especially to Woman's Missionary Union. As the pastor of a large church in Richmond, Virginia, Travis recognizes the important role of WMU in the churchleading others to understand, embrace, and live the call of God. Having served as a missionary journeyman, a career missionary in Nigeria, and as a pastor of several different congregations, he speaks from personal experience as a churchman and as one who has lived among the peoples of the world outside the US.

In writing Live the Call, I interviewed a number of people about their personal experiences with God's call. Travis was so real about the ups and downs of discovering what it is God desires our lives to be about. But when it came to his call to missions, he said it was as if God was smiling on my overseas service.

For those who desire to be sensitive to God's call in their lives, one thing is certain: God's call is not a one-time event, nor to a single place of service. God's call is fluid and growing, testing and stretching us as we become mature followers of Christ.

Travis personally acknowledged this reality when he knew God was redirecting him from serving overseas to a US pastorate. With each change in his place of service, Travis said there was a deep sense of rightnessa profound impression in my spirit that my Father and Creator is pleased with this. Living out God's call has its challenges.

As you read this book, you will discover for yourself through the experiences of one who has learned to trust and follow God's call that it is always the right thing to do. We don't have to live our lives confused about which direction to follow. We have a God who stands ready and willing to set us on the right path, a path that leads to joy and fulfillment as well as a purpose that gives meaning to each and every day.

Wanda Lee

Executive Director

Woman's Missionary Union

Directionally
Challenged

How to Find and Follow
God's Course for Your Life

Travis Collins

New Hope Publishers

P. O. Box 12065

Birmingham, AL 35202-2065

www.newhopepublishers.com

2007 by Travis Collins

All rights reserved. First printing 2007

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Collins, Travis.
Directionally challenged : how to find and follow God's course for your life / Travis Collins.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-59669-075-2 (sc)
1. Discernment (Christian theology) 2. Vocation--Christianity. I.

Title.

BV4509.5.C652 2007

248.4--dc22

2006039260

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked The Message are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois. All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1-59669-075-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-59669-075-2

N074136 0507 7M1

Dedicated to my friends at

Woman's Missionary Union

and

Woman's Missionary Union Foundation

missional-living people

whom I deeply admire

INTRODUCTION

Keri and I have two sons and a daughter. They are at the ages at which they are asking some of life's defining questions, and I have the privilege of helping them think through those questions. Naturally, I sometimes offer my input even when they don't ask.

Our church is working hard to help people in our churchlaypersons, as they are usually calledto discern and embrace their places in the family of God. We have an associate pastor for member mobilization who leads us in that effort. Also, at the time of this writing, I am meeting intermittently with seven college students and two adults in midcareer from our church family who believe they are being drawn to some type of vocational ministry. In addition, people never stop asking questions about the will of God. Sincere Christ followers long to understand the heart and mind of our Father.

I often speak with people who are in ministerial vocationspastors and others whose livelihoods come from their ministry. It's not uncommon for people in vocational ministry to struggle with their call, even to the point of wondering if perhaps they should try real estate or insurance or some other line of work.

I have written this book with people like my own sons and daughter in mind, as well as the members of our church family and the vocational ministers I know.

Besides that, I am living my personal call. I'm not living it perfectly. I don't get emails from God. I don't understand fully the ways of the Creator. Never have. Yet I write as one who is attempting, by God's grace, to hear and follow the promptings of the Spirit.

Before we get too far into this, you need to know some of my basic assumptions regarding God's call:

1. We can know, and live out, the purposes for which we were created. Acts 13:36 tells us, When David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep. It is possible for humans like you and me to fulfill God's purposes for us during the fleeting time allotted to us on this earth.

2. God created us with gifts that overlap with His work in the world. No one is called to help meet every need. Yet at the point where the world's needs, God's mission, and our gifts meetthere we find our calling, our purpose for being. And for each of us there are those exciting intersections.

3. Many of us would do a far better job of fulfilling the purposes for which we were created if we were better able to discern those purposes. The age-old question, What is God's will for my life? reflects both our innate longing to do what we were put here by God to do and our difficulty in discerning our God-given roles. One of my prayers for this book is that we will gain some tools that will help us discover God's intentions for our lives.