God has called everyone on this earth to a particular purpose or calling.  Finding your calling is step #1.  By Gary Shotton #000167

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Find Your Calling

By Gary Shotton

                    Hello, my name is Gary Shotton and you are a part of these Inspiring Better Business videos and audios. I hope they are helpful to you. And today we are going to talk about finding your calling.  I say that right away I have got just to admit up front here this is going to be a video that is more spiritual. I want to talk about God. I am going to talk about God and his guidance in my life and how to be led by God in certain areas. We strictly prohibit speakers from being preachers on our websites. There are other teachings from that. But I will tell you that I am confident that everything I say and everything that is on our website is consistent with the word of God. It is just not a preaching session with scripture and verse for everything we do. So, with that said, I am going to talk about finding your calling. And you know, there is this fine line in this that when we have children or even now my grandchildren, you can start seeing likes and dislikes, skills and maybe some things that they are good at or some things they do not like to do. I happen to be an engineer. My oldest son is an engineer. His son is an engineer. When he was two and three years old, you could just see it in him. He is thinking like an engineer. That is up to him to find how God had called him, what God has called him to do. Now, inside that, we have certain people that are called to be all kinds of professions, the gift of administration, the gift of construction. The temple in the Old Testament was built with craftsman that were gifted and anointed to work with steel and metal and cloth. The name, I looked it up, was called “Malaka”. That is the craftsman. That is a Hebrew word for someone who is skilled in everything from ladies that do seamstress work, because they have built this temple. So, there’s callings and giftings. So, I am going to move right into the calling of a business owner.

I know I am called to be a business owner. And I will tell you that I did not start out that way. I needed to grow up. I needed to grow into some basic things of just life.  So, after graduating from engineering school, 4 half years to get through school, I worked for the big oil company for about 9 half years. It is what I needed. It is where I started developing some basic skillsets of working with people and being a team player and managing people, dealing with conflict, dealing with my own growth as an adult. And so then at the point that I moved on from that, I got some more detailed Bible training for two years, and that is when I started my business career, my life as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. And I will tell you, in this process, there’s people that look at God. I am talking about the business world. And I know some of them. I do not always have the ability to speak into their life, and I believe God will maybe use me through this teaching. I do not know. But basically, they kind of got God as their partner, as their co-pilot, as their helper, not in a good way. It is kind of like they have got God only if I need them. I will do it my own way, but if I need you, God, I need you to be there, so I might even pay my tithes, I might even go to church. But you know, I am going to do my own thing my own way. But if I need you, I assure you need to be there and I kind of expect you to show up. One person calls it is the spare tire mentality, that you are driving on the highway, your car, you do not need a spare tire unless you have a flat. But boy when you have a flat.  Boy, the last time I had a flat, I had to figure out how to get the jack out, I had to get the tire out. Well, I have done this, but it has been a long time because I did not need the jack for very long. Now, God is not our spare tire. He wants to be involved with us from day one on a daily regular basis. And he may take you a different path than what you thought you ought to go. I want to go right to the top. I know some people, boy, they want to go right to the top. They want to own a $20 million business right now, quick, real fast, probably it is not going to work that way. What I saw God in the Old Testament and the New Testament, a lot of times He takes us through a period that he asked us to do something, what is not that favorable, is not that stylish. It is not prestigious to do some things that God ask you to do. He is looking for obedience. He is not looking for you to take him along as the spare tire. He is looking to see whether you are going to be willing to continually look to him and take you. He might take you through the mud just a little bit, just to see what happens. I know a situation where a young couple was about to get married or thinking about getting married. This world of some TV reality show, that is not real. You want to see your spouse in a negative situation. They’re not negative, but in a awkward situation where things aren’t rosy and see how this is really going to work out before you get married. There is a little married advice to you. But basically, God took and takes us through things that we do not necessarily think that cool. Let me give you my example, okay? I graduate from a very well-known engineering school. I am working for a big oil company. And I feel God’s leading that I should give up that job and go to Bible school. Now I gave up the job for just a leave of absence for nine months, but I never went back. But I gave up the job, thinking I am going to have a new job at my new city because I have got almost 10 years’ experience.

I got a nice degree from a major company, a major university. But I get there, there is no job. What am I going to do? I had to humble myself and load furniture. I am talking a sofa, a chair, the dirty mattresses, pack stuff. Anybody can do that. And I felt very, very inferior at that point. I will be honest with you. The first 30, 40 business jobs that I moved, I am moving these people, I wanted to remind them. “Hey, I’m willing to do this. “I’m really an engineer. “I’m really a high-paid, “I’m really an important person.” They did not want to hear that. They just want their furniture moved, so I just shut up from there. There are people that still do not know that I am an engineer, because I just do not talk about it. That took me through, and I cannot believe, 17 years of humbling myself, balancing a tough budget, making ends meet, working with, never at one time, but always about 75 employees, but over a period of the years, I had 750 different employees. I had people that embezzled from me. I had people that did not show up a time for work. I had people that cheated me. I had customers that did not pay me, did not want to pay me, and never planned to pay me. I had to be a truck driver. I am currently a truck driver. Those are not bad occupations. But compared to me and what I thought I could be as a successful engineer in a big oil company, I humbled myself. I just said “God, whatever you want me to do “I am going to make this work. “I’m not backing up.” And that is where I learned my skills. It was there that I learned my business skills to own and buy, really buy a company of this size, very large, much larger business, and own and manage a company with 60 employees. God took me through that. Now, he is not necessarily going to take you through all that. He might take you a different route. But is God your spare tire, you pull Him out when you need Him, or is he your headlight? Is he the light that you are following, willing to do thick and thin, good, or bad, prestigious, not prestigious, whether I want to or not, day or night? I work sometimes 80, hours a week. That is possible. There’s only 168 hours. So, I only slept a little bit. But I had to because I had to get something done. Now I am not doing that now I tell you, but I do know what it is like. So, I hope this helps you. I hope you will make God the light unto your path, the headlight ahead of you. You join up with Him, do not ask Him to join up with you. Thank you for listening. I hope this is helpful to you. I sure hope I can reach out to you on a personal basis as well.

Thank you.