“I don’t think God has these expectations for us to be grand in our life. He will give us big assignments, yes that is true. But I think God is much more interested in developing our character than He isn’t the specifics of our calling.
I think we define ourselves to be successful if/when we accomplish something big for God. But God is saying no let me accomplish something big in you. We stand before God saying “whatever my assignment is for today, I know your main goal is to create character in me that pleases and honors you.” My great desire for God is to develop my character which will fuel my calling.”
–Lysa Terkeurst, “Thriving Beyond Belief” Podcast
There are many verses in scripture to back this up. Character is important to God. I was listening to this on my way to work today and was so encouraged!
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.–Colossians 3:12-14
Your question may be what is good character? Here are some examples via google–integrity, honesty, loyalty, respectful, responsible, humble, compassion, forgiving, authentic, courageous, kind, loving, the list can go on…. the Bible verse notes the same qualities.
Sometimes living in this world, we can start to believe maybe we don’t need to have good character because that person over there obviously doesn’t. But that is not what scripture says. Scripture says since we are God’s chosen people, we need to make good character central to our life. It speaks volumes of whose we are! That we have good character because of Jesus. It can be one of our greatest testimonies to each other, because we look different than the world! And like Lysa says our character fuels our calling. We don’t have one and not the other: both are necessary.
I pray that we would be people that would take this to heart. That we would be known by our good character that would point to Jesus! I pray that even if we have fallen short and messed up that we would humbly come to Jesus’ feet and ask that He would give us character and that He would give us opportunities to develop it in new ways. I pray we would be people whose character fuels our calling! Be encouraged today!
Trudy Woodward
Lydia House Director