You may envision the act of finding your calling to resemble a dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime moment. In our imagination, the clouds part, a ray of light beams down, and a booming voice hands us a flawless 40-year roadmap.
But if you look at both Scripture and our everyday lives, God rarely gives us a full-life roadmap. Instead, He usually gives us direction one step at a time.
While we might occasionally receive direction in a dramatic way—at the top of a mountain or in the middle of a thunderstorm—it mostly happens in the ordinary moments of everyday life, simply because we stepped out and pushed some doors.
In April 2020, at the age of 34, I realized God was calling me to write. When God spoke, I wasn’t at a spiritual retreat waiting for a grand revelation; I was simply preparing material for a women’s meeting I was scheduled to lead over Zoom.
Yet, when I hit rewind on my journey, I see that He was already quietly speaking. Not only that, but He used every unique, seemingly disconnected experience before 2020 to prepare me for this exact task.
A Foundational Truth About Finding Your Calling
Before we talk about careers, books, or projects, it’s important to state a foundational truth: God’s ultimate purpose for your life has already been revealed. It’s not a mystery hidden behind a secret door. Jesus made it incredibly clear: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Tied to this is our highest calling: to be a disciple of Jesus, continuously transformed into His likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Career tracks, ministries, and book projects are just the scaffolding—the specific, temporary arenas where we get to live out that ultimate, eternal calling.
1. The Season of Preparation (Even When You Don’t See It)
When I was 18, I began a college degree in languages and translation in Portugal, which is where I grew up as a missionary kid. Did I believe it was God’s will for me to be a translator for the rest of my life? No way. I just figured it made sense to pursue translation because I was bilingual in Portuguese and English, had been learning German, and enjoyed reading and writing.
We often put immense pressure on ourselves to know the end from the beginning. But God frequently starts us in a place of simply using the raw materials He has already given us.
Think of Moses. We tend to look at his life through the lens of his major highlight reel: parting the Red Sea and leading the Israelites out of Egypt. But God’s will for Moses wasn’t just that one big thing. It was also God’s will for him to live in Pharaoh’s palace for 40 years, and to tend sheep in obscurity for another 40.
Those 80 years weren’t a waste, nor were they a cosmic delay. They were the very places where God was shaping Moses’ character, softening his anger, and molding him into the humblest man on earth.
Often, we are so busy staring at the horizon for our “big calling” that we completely overlook what God is asking us to do today. God’s will for you isn’t just the future ministry opportunity; it’s the ordinary obedience required in the season you are currently standing in.
2. The Power of the “Failed” Experiment
After finishing my college degree, I moved back to the UK, my country of birth. I took a temporary project as an interpreter for a health institution, and after that work finished, picked up a couple of freelance translation projects.
That’s when I realized something was wrong.
Being a freelance translator—the exact thing I’d trained for—was not fulfilling. I’d pictured myself working on fascinating texts for the European Union, my life full of purpose, healthy challenge, and a good wage. Instead, the agencies paid little, expected everything to be ready yesterday, and the texts were so boring I felt like tearing my hair out. My deepest desire was to work on texts that communicated truth and drew people to God, not marketing copy for foam mattresses.
It felt like a dead end. But God used that experience for my good. Sometimes, God allows us to walk down a path so we can definitively cross it off the list. Finding out what you don’t want is just as valuable as finding out what you do.
Look at Gideon. When God called him to save Israel, Gideon didn’t immediately possess unwavering faith. He needed to test things out. He laid out a fleece on the threshing floor not once, but twice—asking God to make it wet with dew, then dry, testing the waters of his calling. God didn’t rebuke him for experimenting; He met him in it to build his confidence and transform his fearful heart into that of a warrior.Âą
Sometimes, God allows us to walk down a path so we can definitively cross it off the list. Finding out what you don’t want is just as valuable as finding out what you do.
3. Pivoting and Balancing the Tides
Realizing God’s will for me wasn’t to make a full-time career out of freelance translation, I prayed. Over time, I sensed the Lord leading me to take a course to teach English as a foreign language (EFL) and to return to Portugal.
After taking those steps, I worked part-time as a translator and part-time as a teacher. I felt better with the balance, but there was still a restless tugging at my heart that I couldn’t quite decipher.
Life kept moving. I met and married my husband, and we had our first daughter. When I returned to part-time work a year after she was born, I also began writing content about my experiences as a mom. No one asked me to. No one paid me. Writing was simply my way of communicating what I was learning. It came naturally, and it was life-giving to my soul.
But just as quickly as that spark ignited, the season shifted. I gave birth to my second daughter, and 13 months later, my son. Taking a massive leap of faith, I stopped all freelance teaching and translation to focus entirely on motherhood.
Sometimes, taking a risk means stepping away from good opportunities in order to obey the quiet prompting of God for the season right in front of you.
4. The Collision of All Your Seasons
It was only when my son turned three, in 2020, that the threads finally came together.
At that time, I was co-leading a moms’ ministry and was asked to lead a Zoom session on identity in motherhood. As I prepared, the floodgates opened. I had an abundance of material built from years of lived experience as a mother and my walk with God. In the midst of compiling that content, I felt a distinct, undeniable prompting from the Lord: Write a book.
At the end of April 2020, I began.
Now, six years later in 2026, I look back in awe. I have published five original books, three translations, and one short story for children.
The long hours translating boring texts? God used them to build the resilience I needed to write books. The teaching experience? God provided me with the skills I needed to communicate effectively. The seasons of quiet motherhood where I struggled with identity? That became the very heart of my ministry.
This doesn’t mean those roles were merely preparation for my calling as a writer. Being a wife and a mother are not secondary activities or “pauses” in my life’s mission; they are high, holy callings in their own right. God did not call me to be an author in spite of my motherhood, nor did He call me to be a mother in order to become an author. He called me to be both, simultaneously.
The Apostle Paul is a brilliant example of this beautiful collision. Paul was a deeply educated Pharisee, fluent in cultural nuances and Jewish law. He was also a tentmaker by trade. When God radically called him on the road to Damascus, Paul didn’t throw away his past. God used his legal mind to write theology, his Roman citizenship to appeal to the highest courts, and his tent-making skills to fund his missionary journeys. Every single experience collided into his ultimate purpose.
The Danger of Overlooking the “Small” Will of God
When I hit rewind on my life, it’s easy to point to 2020 and say, “Ah, see? Writing books was the big thing God wanted me to do all along!”
But if I view my life that way, I cheapen all the years that came before it.
It was God’s will for me to struggle through boring translations. It was God’s will for me to balance teaching while navigating early marriage. It was His explicit call on my life to step away from paid work entirely to hold my babies and pour myself into motherhood.
Those seasons weren’t just a prologue to “the real stuff.” They weren’t just preparation for a bigger assignment. They were assignments in themselves.
If we only value the moments where we feel we are operating in our grand purpose, we miss the entire point of the Christian life. God cares about my work, but He cares more about my heart. The frustrating deadlines, the quiet years of changing diapers, the confusing career pivots—those were the exact tools God used for my transformation.
Don’t let the search for a “big calling” blind you to the small, daily acts of obedience God is asking of you right now. Loving your spouse, serving your neighbor, being honest in your workplace, staying faithful in the quiet—that is the will of God for your life.
How to Start Your Own Purpose Experiment Today
If you want to live out your purpose, you have to be willing to try things (and occasionally fail at them), pivot when necessary, and trust the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Here is how you can audit your journey today:
- Audit your current season: What specific assignment is God asking you to be faithful to right now, even if it feels small or hidden?
- Follow the life-giving sparks: What are you doing when you feel your soul come alive, even if no one is paying you for it or watching?
- Embrace the pivots: Don’t be afraid to change direction if an experiment reveals a dead end. A closed door is just as directive as an open one. Your life is not a straight line; it is a tapestry. Trust the Weaver. Every thread—even the boring ones, the hard ones, and the ones that seem like a detour—is being used to frame a beautiful picture.
