Why You Feel Called to More - The Truth You’ve Never Been Told

Speaker A00:00:00

Do you ever feel like you're just going through the motions? Like deep down you were made for something more, but you can't quite put your finger on it?There's this quiet, steady hum beneath the noise of your daily life, a feeling that your own reality, as good as it might be, isn't actually the whole story. And sure, you've got a good job, you've got a decent life, but there's this ache, a divine dissatisfaction you just can't shake.But what if I told you that your secret calling was given to you before you were even born? Yeah, that's right.The Bible actually reveals in scriptures like Jeremiah and Isaiah that God has a divine blueprint for your life, a purpose that was set in motion long before you ever took your first breath. And this isn't some grand theological idea for ancient prophets. It's actually a deeply personal and practical truth for you right here and right now.So I want you to stick with me today, because today we're going to unroll that blueprint.We're going to look at that unshakable biblical truth that your life is not an accident, that your feelings of more are not some fantasy, and that your greatest purpose was sealed in the heart of God well before the foundations of the world. Remains when the world falls apart. Hello there.I'm Ralph Estep Jr. And this is Truth Unveiled with Ralph, where every week we strip away the noise and the lies and the half truths of this world, and we uncover that unshakable truth of God's word.And if you've ever felt like there has to be more to your life, but you just couldn't explain it, I believe you're not here by accident today because today's message is for you. Let's get right into it. Let's be honest for a second. Many of us, if we took a quiet inventory of our hearts, would find a strange paradox.We live in a world right now with more connection and opportunity than ever. But as I've said on the show before, so many of us feel profoundly lost and alone.We can have a calendar full of appointments, a phone full of contacts, a house full of stuff, and still feel like an echoing emptiness inside. It's that feeling of being a ship with a powerful engine.You can just picture this big steamship, big, powerful engine, but it's got no rudder and there's no map. And sure, you're moving, you're busy, you're making big waves, but you've got no idea where you're ultimately going or why. You're going there.So let's get right into scripture today. If you take your Bibles, we're going to go now. I've got a new Bible here today. I went with something a little bit thinner.So if you see me kind of stumbling around today, it's because I'm using a new one. But we're going to go to the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter three, and we're going to look at verse 11 and. And let's look for verse 11.And honestly, the type's a little smaller too, so it's going to take a little adjusting. But Ecclesiastes 3, 11, and it says this, and I'm going to actually start at verse 10.His intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be named, known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. And it goes on to say, he has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.Yet no one can fathom what God has done from the beginning to end. And it's really a good verse here. And I was thinking about as I was preparing for today's show, we all have this ache.And I don't believe it's random, because that ache you feel, it's eternity inside of you. I truly believe you weren't designed to be satisfied with just temporary things.If we've been built for eternity, then those temporary things just frustrate us because you feel that there's evidence of a deeper design. And that emptiness you might be feeling, that emptiness right now. And so many of us try to fix that emptiness with success.We go chasing after things, go looking for comfort. We look for distraction. That's not a flaw. I truly believe it's a signal.Because God placed eternity in your heart and my heart, so we would never settle for less than Him. And this is what I'm going to coin a fancy term. It's what I call the echo of a deeper calling.It's this spiritual reverberation from the moment of your creation. It's the sound of the person God designed you to be calling out to the person where you currently are right at this moment.And I know that's kind of a deep thought, but I really believe we have that inside of us. And to share. Listen. I remember a season in my own life. It felt exactly like this. On the outside, everything looked great.I was checking all the boxes. I thought I was a successful Christian life. Checked all the Boxes that required.I was active in my church, providing for my family, and by external measures, I was doing okay. But when I get home at the end of the day and the house was quiet this way, that.And honestly, I can only describe it as hollowness would just wash over me, kind of took over all my thoughts. And I remember thinking, is this it? Is this all there is? I felt like I was in this cycle of work, eat, sleep, repeat. Work, eat, sleep, repeat.Now, surely God put me on this earth for more than just paying bills and waiting for the weekends to happen. I felt like I was wearing clothes that were two sizes too small. And honestly, I've lost a lot of weight, so I probably was.But everything felt constricted. The work I was doing felt trivial. My efforts in all things seemed pointless. And I was constantly looking at other people.I mean, pastors and missionaries, worship leaders. And I was thinking, well, they've got a real calling, don't they? They're doing something that matters for eternity. And I'm just here.This feeling, this ache, I want to tell you right now, it's not a sign that you're ungrateful because it's easy to go there. And it's not some symptom of weak faith. I truly believe it's in fact a sign of a healthy spirit.It's this homing beacon in your soul that's activated by the Holy Spirit trying to guide you back to your original design. Because what did God say? It was at the beginning. And God placed that desire for more within you because he has more for you.Think about how great that is. God has more for you. But the problem is we live in a world that constantly tries to sell us cheap substitutes for that and more. Look around you.The world tells you the cure for your purposelessness. That's a big word, but that's what it is. The cure for your purposelessness is a new job or just get a new job and everything will be great.Change jobs, it'll work. The world tells us it's a new relationship.We see people end in relationships and divorces at a record pace because the world saying, oh, your purpose, oh, it's going to be with this other person. We see it in new hobbies. Oh, don't do that anymore. Try this hobby. You'll like that better. We see it in a bigger house or a more exciting vacation.And so we chase these things, and we chase. We're running after them because we're hoping that I'll silence that echo, that echo chamber that I talked about in my own life.And we climb the corporate ladder. We think the view from the top, hey, that's going to satisfy us. We're going to be at the top and, oh, this is what God intended for us.And we pour all our energy into finding that perfect person. How many times have you heard that? Oh, I got to find the perfect spouse. I got to find a perfect partner.Because we have this mistaken belief that somehow they're going to complete us. But they don't, do they? And we accumulate experiences and possessions because we're hoping to fill this void. But it never works, does it?That new job, it was fancy at first, but it just becomes a job. That relationship, as wonderful as it was at the beginning, can't bear the weight of being your ultimate purpose. And that vacation ends.That new car gets a scratch. And when the thrill fades and it will fade, the echo returns, sometimes louder than it was before. And this is what I call agitation.It's this spiritual friction that so many of us are living in. It's this tension of knowing you were created for a symphony. Just picture a symphony, something beautiful, big and full. Many members of that.But you're stuck playing a single repetitive note. Picture yourself in front of a piano and you're just going, ding, ding, ding. It's what the Bible calls a groaning.This inner longing for redemption and fulfillment, this feeling of being lost, of being insignificant, of your work seeming useless. And I want to call it something I think it is. It's what I call the modern day pandemic of purposelessness. And it affects everyone.It affects the college student. Staring at a list of 100 majors. I'm shocked when I look at these college booklets now, how many majors there were?I feel like when I went to college I'm dating myself, there wasn't so many.And the problem is the college student is so terrified of choosing the wrong path and missing their one shot at a meaningful life, so they don't do anything. It affects the stay at home parent who loves their children more than life itself.But in those quiet moments when the kids are asleep, starts to wonder to themselves if wiping noses and cleaning up spills is all their calling will ever be. That's sad, because they see others with public ministries and they feel hidden. They feel forgotten and they feel unimportant.And it affects the person in their 40s or I'm in the 50s myself here, who's built a career and a life, only to wake up one day feeling like a stranger in their own story. You ever feel Like a stranger in your own story. You start to wonder, how did I get here? I think about this sometimes, almost every day.And where am I supposed to be? Where am I supposed to end up? Here.It affects the retiree who has spent a lifetime working and now in the sudden stillness, feels profoundly put on a shelf, their usefulness just completely expired. I work with retired clients. Every day I hear that. I feel useless. I feel expired, Ralph.So if any of this resonates with you, first of all, you're not alone. But bigger than that, you're not broken. And that feeling isn't your enemy. Here's the best part.It's actually your invitation, because it is God in his infinite love. That's what you're really hearing. And God is knocking at the door of your heart.And he's saying something very dramatically, saying, are you tired of trying to build your own purpose? But bigger than that, are you ready to discover the one I designed for you from the beginning, that's the exciting part.But the world tells you something completely different. The world solution is, go find your why. How many of these gurus, these self improvement gurus, you gotta go find your why.But the kingdom solution is not that at all. The kingdom solution is to serve his why. You see the difference there? The problem isn't that you don't have a purpose.The problem is you've been looking for it in all the wrong places. You've been looking for it here on Earth when it was established in eternity at the beginning.You've been trying to create it with your own hands, molding it together when it was already spoken into existence by the mouth of God himself. This feeling of being adrift, it's the natural consequence of a world that has forgotten its origin. We are people created by a purposeful God.I truly believe that with every ounce of my being. That was what our purpose was. But without connection to him. We're like phones without a signal.You ever been out somewhere with your phone, you look at, you want to make a call, you got no bars. Well, that's what our lives have become, full of potential. When you got bars, man, that phone can do all kinds of cool things.You can make calls, you can text, you can browse the Internet. Our lives are just like that. We don't have a signal. We got this huge amount of potential, but we're unable to fulfill our primary function.That anxiety, that frustration that we're feeling, that comparison, the feeling of being a spectator in your own life, these are all symptoms of that disconnected calling. And it's the place of frustration that we turn to now. Because the agitation you feel is not a dead end, it's a doorway.And this is where the journey gets real. It's one thing to feel a general sense of something more. I think a lot of us would say at times we felt that.But it's another thing entirely to live in the day in, day out frustration of not knowing where that more actually is. This agitation of that unseen blueprint for our lives.It's that constant torment of knowing there's a plan for your life, a divine architectural drawing with your name on it. But you feel like you lost the address to the architect's office. And this frustration shows up in so many ways. And it breeds a whole host of lies.The enemy loves to whisper in our ears. Maybe you recognize some of his favorite tunes. His first lie is the lie of disqualification.The enemy comes to you and points to your past and says you a calling. You remember what you did. You remember those mistakes, the failures, the secret sins. God's never going to use someone like you.Your own blueprint was voided the moment you chose your way over his. And the enemy wants you to live in a prison of regret. He wants you to believe that.Have you convinced that your file has been moved to the damaged goods cabinet in heaven? But let's get into scripture because scripture addresses this too.Let's look at the book of Revelation, Book of Revelation, chapter 12 and verse number 10. And it says, then I heard a loud voice in heaven and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.For the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.Therefore rejoice you heavens and you dwell in them. But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has gone down to you. He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short.Just think about what the Bible is saying there. It's a grand expose on Satan's role. What is it telling us? He's not just a tempter, he's an accuser. Which points me back to what I said a minute ago.That voice telling you that you're disqualified. Friend, that's not the voice of God. God is never going to tell you're disqualified. He's got a purpose for your life.That was ordained the moment he breathed you into existence. So God convicts to restore what the enemy accuses to paralyze.If you're hearing voices of shame and hiding, that's not from your father, that's not from God. And that narrative in your head, that narrative that says things like, you messed up too bad, Ralph. Oh, you missed your chance, you're not enough.That is not truth, that's accusation. And it's already been defeated. So that's the first lie. The second lie is the lie of inadequacy. And this one's subtle. You gotta watch this one.It's not about your sin, it's about your talent. And the enemy points to others and says things like, look at them. So gifted. You can sing, they can preach, they can lead, they can organize.What can you do? You're just ordinary. You don't have what it takes. God's callings are for the A team. And you're barely on the practice squad.And this lie makes you focus on what you think you lack. Instead of God's limitless power. It convinces you somehow that your ordinary life can't possibly house an extraordinary calling. Here's the third lie.The third lie is the lie of the timeline. The enemy tells that young person, you're too young, you're too inexperienced. Wait until you're older and you're wiser and you're more established.And then he spins at the same time around and tells the other person, you're too old, your time has passed, you missed your window. It's too late to start something new. He's trapping you in this paralysis of not yet or too late, ensuring you never step into the power of right now.And all these lies create this deep spiritual anxiety. And we start trying to fix the problem ourselves. And so many of us go on this frantic search. We read books, all kinds of self help book nonsense.We go to conferences, I'll make myself better conferences. We take all the personality tests. We try to re engineer our calling.We say things like, okay, I'm good at organizing, so my purpose must be to be an administrator. And you live in this administrative light that God maybe never intended for you. Or maybe you say, well, you know what?I'm a good listener, so my purpose must be a counselor. And we try to assemble our purpose from these scattered pieces of our skills and interests. But what happens? We end up exhausted.We end up more confused than even before we started. Picture this. It's like you're trying to build IKEA furniture. You set out all the parts, but they didn't send any instructions.Yeah, you got all the parts, they all look important, but you got no idea how they fit together.And you could even, maybe, maybe you can fashion something that looks like a bookshelf, but the moment you put a book on it, the whole thing collapses. Why is that? Because you didn't follow the designer's blueprint. And see, this is the spiritual state of so many believers right now.A life of well intentioned but self directed effort. And it's exhausting.That frustration of the unseen blueprint is knowing you were made by a master potter, yet feeling like a lump of shapeless clay on a wheel that stops spinning. Let's go to the book of Jeremiah. And Jeremiah says this, This is verse, chapter 18, verses three and four. It says.So I went down to the potter's house and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands. So the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Wow.What's God showing us here? God is showing Jeremiah how he works with people. The potter's wheel spinning, it's being shaped into something.But then he realizes that's not going to work. Well, God does the same thing. He's not discarding you. It never said in there that he took that lump of clay and threw it away. What does it say?He reshaped it. He made it into something else. Those mistakes that all of us have made, raise your hand if you ever made a mistake. I did.Those mistakes did not cancel your calling. They didn't put your calling on some shelf where you'll never be able to get to it again. Being marred does not mean being discarded.God never throws anybody away. He reforms you. Just think right now, that season you regret in your life, that failure you replay over and over and over in your mind.That version of your life that just didn't work out. Friend, God is not done with you. He's actually still shaping you. And you need to hear this today.The Holy Spirit put this on my heart so strongly today. Your feeling of being marred, of being fauled, of not living up to the original design to, does not cause the potter to discard you.He's simply reshaping You Hear that? That pressure you feel, the spinning of the wheel that makes you dizzy some days. That frustration of not knowing what you're becoming.Friend, that's not a sign of God's absence. It's actually the evidence of his hands on you. Just picture that potter's wheel, it's spinning around and you're that clay and God's hands are just.It's forming it into what he wants you to be. That agitation is part of the process. If God didn't form you, if he didn't agitate that clay, you wouldn't be what he wants you to get.That frustration you're feeling is God's tool to make you pliable. He's breaking down your self reliance and he's dismantling the weak structures you've built for yourself. And it's not easy, is it?Because he's allowing you to feel the full weight of your own insufficiency. You gotta feel that. Why is he doing that? So that you can finally, completely surrender to his mastery.That lump of clay on that wheel has no capacity to form itself. But we try to do that, don't we? We try to take all the things we think our life should be and we're going to do this, and we're going to do that.But the whole time God's there going, just let me put my hands on you. Let me do this. And there's danger in misdiagnosing this holy agitation. We feel like this inner turmoil and we think something's wrong with us.So many of us say, well, God must be angry at me. And when we feel that way, we run to worldly anesthetics. Big word. But we run to them. We numb ourselves with entertainment.I'm just going to check out. I'm going to go watch Netflix. I'm going to go watch something on YouTube. We numb it with endless scrolling, man.I've talked about that on this show many times. And we compare our shapeless lump of clay to everyone else's finished pots. Look at that. Pot's beautiful. Look at that. Fantastic.It's not what I look like. My pot looks like a mess. And we numb it with ambition. We try to prove our worth through achievement. Oh, I'm gonna do all these things.I'm gonna run this race. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna buy this. I'm gonna do this. Doesn't get us anywhere. Gonna step on some toes now. We numb it with religion.Getting so busy doing things for God that we never learn to simply be. Be with God and let him do the work. But friend, what if that frustration isn't a sign that you're lost at all?What if it's the very thing God is using to get your attention? We've talked about blueprint a couple times. What if the blueprint isn't lost, but it's just waiting to be unrolled.What if that ache in your soul is a compass? I remember when I was a kid, I was in the Cub Scouts, we had a compass. We would go out and do camping and all that hike around.But what if that ache in your soul that you're feeling right now is a compass and its needle is pointing to heaven and it's pointing to him? The solution isn't to try harder or search more frantically. The solution is actually to be still.One of my favorite verses of the Bible is be still and know that he is God. Talk about trying to do that in our culture right now you can't be still for 10 seconds. But I think it's so important.Be still and know that he is God.Dare I say the solution is to get off your own throne of your own life, hand that scepter back to the king and trust the one who designed you knows exactly what he's doing. Because the truth that will set you free is this. Your purpose isn't something you need to invent. It's something you are already born with.And it's a secret God has been wanting to share with you from the very moment you were conceived. Now we've talked about that ache, that echo of a deeper calling. We've talked about the frustration of feeling like your life's blueprint is missing.But now we come to the solution. And it is so profound, it's liberating. And it has the power to silence every lie, the enemy and anchor your soul for eternity.The solution is the revelation of your pre birth calling. And this isn't some self help slogan. This is ancient foundational truth woven right into scripture. Let's go right to the source.I want you to listen closely to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 1, verse 5. Now this is God speaking to Jeremiah. But I want you to hear these words as if God is speaking directly over your life right now. This is what it says.Jeremiah 1:5. Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you before you were born. I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Wow. Wow.God is calling Jeremiah but revealing a principle that applies beyond him. God's relationship with you started before your life ever started. Your purpose was assigned before your performance was ever begun.And let me tell you something right now. You are not self made. You're God designed. Why does that matter, friend? You don't have to earn purpose. You don't have to prove your worth to anybody.What does the scripture say? You were known before you were ever seen. God says it, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. He knew Ralph, he knew you.And before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. But let's really dig into this because every word here is packed with power.First, God says, before I formed you in the womb. Now, the word formed here is the same Hebrew verb used for potter molding clay. That works, doesn't it? It's an artist word.It speaks of intentional, intricate design. So this means your existence is not some biological accident. You weren't some afterthought. Before your body even began to take shape.You were fully formed, thought in the mind of God. But then he says, I knew you. And this is the most staggering part. The word, Hebrew word for new here is yada.And it doesn't mean simple awareness, like knowing a fact. It's the same word to use to describe the most intimate relationship possible between a husband and a wife.This isn't God just saying, oh, I knew about you. This is God knowing you personally, relationally and lovingly from a place in eternity before time began.But he continues, before you are born, I set you apart. The word here is consecrated or sanctified. It means to be marked and reserved for a specific holy purpose. Just think about this.Before you took your first breath, before you could do a single thing to earn it, God placed a reserved for divine use sign on your life. You had no capacity to do anything. But he already had a design divine purpose for you.Your very value, your very purpose, were assigned by your creator, completely independent of your performance. You can't do any of those things. But he finally says this. He says, I appointed you. This is the mission. Now, for Jeremiah, it was to be a prophet.I don't think you're appointed to be a prophet. But for you, it's going to be something different. But make no mistake, there's an appointment. There's a divine commission with your name on it.And this truth is echoed again powerfully by King David in Psalm 139. This is what he says. This is Psalm 139. He says, Your eyes saw my unformed body.All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Think about that every single day of your life.The good days, the bad days, those triumphal days, those trials, all of them were recorded in God's book. Your life story was authored by God from eternity. You're not improvising. You're living at a story that he has already written.Let's get back into scripture. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10.And says this for you are God's handiworked, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Now this is Paul speaking and Paul is reminding us you're not just saved, you're sent. You're not some random thing that just happened along.You have an intentional craftsmanship on your life. Your life has pre assigned assignments. You don't create these good works, you walk into them. So what does that feel like right now?And I want you to hear this because you might be like, Ralph, I'm not connecting here, friend. You're not behind, you're not late. You just got to step into something that God already prepared for you.And this pattern isn't just for prophets or kings. It's the pattern for the King of Kings, Jesus himself. Let's look at Isaiah 49. Now this is a prophecy about Jesus. He declares this.The Lord called me from the womb, from the matrix of my mother. He has made mention of my name. Even Jesus had a pre birth calling. And the Bible's filled with examples of this.Scripture records at least seven significant figures who were named by God before they were born. Why does it do that? Because it wanted to show their identity was tied to their divine purpose.Think of John the Baptist, whose name means Yahweh is gracious, preordained. Or Isaac, whose name means laughter, a testament to God's promise. But don't forget about Jesus, whose name means Jehovah Savior.That was his entire mission statement. And this is. This isn't some cool piece of Bible trivia. It's kind of cool to see that, right? But it's God showing us how he operates.God establishes identity and purpose before we are even born. So what does this mean for you? In my view, it changes everything. First thing you have to recognize is your value is not based on your performance.I want to say that again and I want you to really let that sink in. Because in our culture so many people think, well, my value is based on my performance. But your value is not based on your performance.Your worth isn't determined by your successes or failures or your job title or your bank account. Your value was permanently fixed in eternity. When God says, I knew you think about the Apostle Paul. Apostle Paul called himself the chief of sinners.And he understood this when he said in Galatians that God set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace and when you grasp this, those lies of disqualification and inadequacy lose all their power, and you can stop striving to be worthy and start living from a place of already being chosen. Here's the second thing. Your calling is discovered, not created.You gotta understand that one too, because so many people think, I gotta create my calling. It's already there. Scripture is very clear about this. For so many of us, for years, we've been trying to build a purpose.But right now, God is asking you to stop building and start looking for the purpose he already preordained for your life. Your calling isn't a product to manage. It's a mystery to be revealed. But how do you discover it?Well, if you want to know what the mystery is, you got to get closer to the designer. You dive into his Word. You take out your Bible, you get into the Word, you read it.You spend time in prayer, not just talking to him, but listening for him. You ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate that blueprint he's already written on your heart. Stop looking for what and start seeking the who.Here's the third thing. Your purpose is often hidden in your present.I want to say that again because you might not have caught that the first time, but your purpose is oftentimes hidden in your present of where you are right at this moment. And this is crucial. So many of us get trapped in this belief that our calling is some future grand event.And we say, oh, once I get on that mission field or once I start that nonprofit, then I'll be in my calling. But what does Isaiah 49 says of the servant? He made me a polished arrow in his quiver. He hid me away.Sometimes your calling is to be hidden in the quiver. That current, seemingly mundane job is actually God's workshop, where he's making you a polished arrow. That difficult boss.How many times have you had a difficult boss? But what if that difficult boss is the sandpaper smoothing your rough edges?Or that repetitive task is actually a grindstone made making you a sharp sword? Friend, your purpose isn't just a destination. It's a process of preparation. Your calling might be the most honest accountant at your firm.I'm an accountant, so this one worked for me. Maybe the most patient parent on your block or the most prayerful employee in your office. Hear me on this. Stop despising the mundane day to day.God does his most profound work in the backdrop of ordinary life. Your calling isn't to escape your current life, but to infuse it with eternal purpose.What did I say, at the beginning, inside of us is a yearning for eternity. Your life is not some pointless journey. It's a divine appointment with God. You are known, you are consecrated, and you are appointed.Now, we've gone on quite a journey today. We've journeyed from that deep, nagging ache for something more to that frustrating search for an unseen blueprint.And we've landed on the glorious truth that your calling was spoken over by God before you were even formed. Those lies that you were disqualified or inadequate or on the wrong timeline have been shattered completely by God's word and friend.Your value isn't in what you do, but it's in who made you. Your purpose is not something you create, but a gift you're invited to discover.And that preparation journey is happening right now in the very life that you're living. Let's look at Romans, chapter 8:28. I love the book of Romans. If you've been listening to me for any time, you know this is my favorite book.But Romans 8:28 says this, and we know that all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. I'm going to dig in here for a second, because Paul is anchoring believers in confidence even in the chaos. How many of us are living in chaos?Even your wrong turns are not wasted turns. God is not reacting to you. He's working in you. Your calling is bigger than your circumstances. Just think about this for a second.Everything you've walked through, all those difficult days, those difficult bosses, those difficult relationships, God is using that to form you. He's making you into that clay pot. Nothing has been wasted, not even the part you wish you could erase yourself.But let me ask you something, and I'm going to switch a little bit, and I'm talking about your calling anymore, not about your purpose. But I really want to talk about your soul.Because everything we talked about today means nothing if you're still trying to live this life without the one who designed it in the first place. Because you can chase purpose. You can try to fix your life. You can try to become a better version of yourself.But friend, without Jesus, you're always going to feel that ache. Because that ache was never about your career. It was never about your situation.It was always about that separation, that separation from God, who knew you before you were formed, but you've been separated from Him. And maybe right now you're starting to feel it. You're feeling that quiet pull, that weight in your chest, that moment where everything Gets still.And that's not emotion, friend. That's God calling you home. And here's the truth you need to hear today. You don't clean yourself up first. You don't fix everything first.You don't become good enough. You just come as you are. What does Romans 10, verses 9 and 10 say?If you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Friend, this is your moment. Not someday, not later. Right now.And if you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, or maybe you have, you've drifted away. And you know right now you need to come back. I just want to pray with you right now. Right now is the moment. Just repeat this from your heart.Father, I'm tired. I'm so tired of running. I'm so tired of trying. I'm so tired of carrying a life that was never meant to be carried alone.And Lord, right now I feel the weight of my sin. I feel the weight of my mistakes. I feel this distance from you. And I don't want to live like this anymore. I believe that Jesus Christ is your son.And I believe he came for me. I believe he died for me. And I believe he rose again for me. Jesus, I surrender it all. Not a part of my life, all of it. I surrender my past.I surrender my regrets. I surrender my confusion. I surrender my future. And I give it all to you. Forgive me, Lord. Cleanse me. Make me new. Fill me with your spirit.Teach me to follow you and show me the life that you created me to live. From the beginning and from this moment on, I am not my own anymore. I belong to you. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.If you just prayed that I need you to hear something and you need to hear this loud and clear, you have been forgiven. Not maybe, not. Not someday. Right now you are made new. That past you've been carrying is gone. That shame you've been living under is broken.And that distance you felt from God is closed. Friend, you now are a child of God. And that calling we talked about today, it's no longer something you're searching for.It's something you're walking into right at this moment. And this truth changes everything. You can stop striving and start abiding in what he's already created for you.You can stop comparing and start celebrating what he's already given you. And you can stop fearing that you'll miss your purpose and start walking in confidence that the one who ordained your days will Guide you into them.That echo you've been hearing, it's not emptiness. It's a call. It's a heavenly call to fullness. It's a heavenly call to identity. And it's a call to the life that God already wrote for you.That blueprint for your life is not lost, friend. It's written in God's book and it's written on your heart. So here's my question for you. Will you keep trying to build your own life?Or will you finally surrender to the one who already designed it? And if you're ready to stop bleeding, frustration and to step into freedom, I want to make this moment real. I want you to do something right now.I want you to type.If you're listening to this or you're watching this, if you're watching this right now, I want you to go into the comments and I want you to type, I receive my calling. I just want you to type that right in there. I receive my calling. If you're listening to this, say it out loud. I receive my calling.This isn't some hype or emotion, but this is a public declaration that you are done striving and you're ready to walk with God. Let's pray together. Father, I just thank you so much for seeing me before I ever saw you, Lord. Thank you for knowing me before I even knew myself.Thank you for my life. Thank you that my life is not some random wasted or not forgotten. And, Lord, today I just lay it down.I lay down the pressure, I lay down the confusion. I lay down the striving, the need to figure it all out on my own. And I release it.I surrender my plans, my timeline, my expectations, and I just trust you. Lord, I ask right now that you would awaken what you placed inside of me from the beginning.Stir what has been dormant, heal what has been broken, and silence every lie that told me I wasn't enough, every lie that told me I was too late or too far gone, and replace it with truth. The truth that I am chosen, I am called, and I am appointed. Lord, I just want to walk with you daily. Teach me to walk with you daily.Not ahead of you, not behind you, but in step with you. Make me sensitive to your voice, bold in my obedience, faithful in the small things. It's like that clay.Shape me, refine me, prepare me until my life reflects everything you designed it to be in the first place. Use me, God, in ways I can't even see yet, in places I haven't even imagined, for people I haven't even met. Let my life bring you glory.And from this moment forward, I will trust you with every step. And I ask this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Friend, your life is not an accident. You're not a mistake. You're not behind. You're not disqualified.You are chosen. You are called, and you are a divine appointment. So I want you to do something. I want you to go and walk in the purpose of you were born for.And if today's show spoke to you, I want to ask you to do something else for me. Share it with somebody. Maybe somebody you know out there that's searching for more right now.Just go to truthunveiledwithralph.com, join our community, and I'll see you next time on Truth Unveiled with Ralph. God bless you.