6 Questions to Discern Your Assignment

Modern life is loud. I suppose I’m aging myself here, but we live in a far noisier society than the one I grew up in. We are almost a 1990s Will Smith movie, with all the technological advances and the threats to our well-being they create.

For Christians, being aware of the noise is necessary to discern our assignment from God. We serve a big God, but He is so big that He doesn’t need a booming voice to get our attention. Rather, He speaks softly.

When we feel ready for a divine assignment, it can be exciting yet daunting to get started. How does God let us know what assignment he has in mind?

The good news is that God is rarely silent. We just need to work on becoming more observant. If our goal is to love, serve, and speak like Jesus, we must first look for ways God invites us to do so.

Prayer and time spent with the Bible are the best way to “open [your] eyes that [you] may see wonderful things in God’s law” (Psalm 119:18, NIV).

From there, you can begin observing the world around you with fresh eyes through a biblical lens and asking questions to discern your assignment. Below are six questions that may help you get started.

God’s Invitation to Love

At the heart of God is love. The Holy Spirit quietly prompts us to love every day. The problem is that we get so busy and hung up on the day-to-day that we often inadvertently see people as interruptions. But they’re not. They are the reasons.

In every interaction we have, there is an opportunity to show Christ’s love to people in real time. This means shifting our focus from a transactional exchange to a potentially transformative one.

1 John 4:7 (NIV) says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone has been born of God and knows God.”

Question 1: Who in my current circle feels “invisible” or “difficult”? How might God be asking me to see them through His eyes today?

God’s Invitation to Serve

When we hear the term “serving others,” it can sound like service must be a formal program, a mission trip, or another church-organized activity. That is a misconception. Service can happen anywhere. Often, the best opportunities appear in the “cracks” of your daily schedule.

At the core of the definition of service is a natural overflow of our hearts that recognizes our own debt of grace.

Even Jesus served others. He didn’t come to earth to be served but to serve, and ultimately gave up His life to pay a debt He didn’t owe (Mark 10:45, NIV).

Question 2: What unmet need in my community keeps catching my attention, and is that persistence a divine nudge to act?

God’s Invitation to Speak

Words are a powerful thing. Have you ever seen the toothpaste demonstration? The idea is that once the toothpaste is squeezed out on the counter, there is no way to put it back in. The argument is that words can do great good, but they can also destroy and make a big mess. Like the toothpaste, they can’t be put back.

This is an important distinction for Christians to understand because God often invites us to speak on His behalf to promote encouragement, truth, justice, and love. Sometimes, our fear of awkwardness silences us.

Remember, though, that Moses himself shared that concern. Look at all he accomplished as the Lord’s mouthpiece when he turned it over to God and completed his assignment (Exodus 4:10, NIV).

The main idea is prophetic encouragement. Sometimes the Lord invites us to speak life into someone’s potential.

When in doubt about your ability to speak for God when invited, remember that “the Sovereign Lord has given [you] a well-instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary” (Isaiah 50:4, NIV).

Question 3: Is there a word of appreciation or a difficult truth I have been holding back that could unlock freedom or healing for someone else?

Discernment Through Presence

If you asked my husband what he thinks my major flaws are, he’d say nothing out loud, of course, but I know my flaws, and it’s a pretty long list. Speaking of lists, that’s one of my biggest problems. I make to-do lists that rival the old phonebooks, combining the Yellow and White pages, then wonder why I feel overwhelmed. He and I were talking about this just last night.

Lists are great, but it is very easy to get so caught up in checking things off that I forget to be present in the moment. To notice when God invites us to do anything, we need to practice being in the moment rather than being five lines down on our list. Daniel Tiger calls it “enjoying the wow that is happening now.”

The discipline of stillness is a prerequisite for action. John 15:5 (NIV) is God’s instruction as we are “to remain with Him.”

Question 4: If I slowed my pace by 10% today, what details about the people around me would I suddenly start to notice?

Overcoming Spiritual Blindness

Certain barriers, such as cynicism, exhaustion, and selfishness, blind us spiritually and keep us from responding to God’s invitations. This is where time spent in prayer and in the Word of God is an asset.

When we take time to be with Jesus and confess our sins, God renews our minds, often revealing a different perspective. God promises this in the Bible when he says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26, NIV).

Question 5: What personal comfort or “safety” am I protecting that might be keeping me from stepping into a God-given assignment to serve?

Responding When God Nudges

Question 6: If I knew for certain that God was standing right beside me in my next conversation, how would my posture of love, service, or speech change?

The thing is, we know through faith that He is right beside us, so we should always strive to show Christ-like love, service, and speech in all that we do. The payoff of this is twofold.

We get to be closer to God, and we are far more likely to notice when He nudges us.

Noticing the nudge is the first half of the equation. The second is obedience. Here’s a challenge. Pick one gentle, Godly “nudge” you identified today and act on it within the next 24 hours. Remember that “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (Colossians 3:23, NIV).