GRWM Episode #5: Walking out God’s Calling on your Life

Earlier this summer, I got to sit down with my friend Megan Murphy Steen. She is currently serving at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya where God called her to medical mission work with her husband Jonathan, who is also a doctor. They are also parents to four children named Joseph, Timothy, Micah, and Cora who get to grow up in Africa! Megan specifically works as an OB/GYN there and is working to establish the first PAACS (Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons). So she’s also training other doctors. 

Needless to say, she’s an amazing woman with a high calling and a huge servant heart. We always love to chat about life and leadership when she’s in town and when she reached out to get together for the few weeks she was here, I said, “Sure! But let’s do it on the podcast.” 

So! There you have it. This woman inspires me to be a better leader. But I also love talking to her about what God’s call looks like in our lives and how we walk out that call and how it doesn’t always look like we “think” it should. She’s got some great stories about how God works in her life over there and we talk quite a bit about what it really means to have a calling from God.

#####

One quick “Get Real” moment I want to share with you that happened behind the scenes here.

I knew I would probably air this episode in July. But what I didn’t know was what July would look like. As my husband and I were preparing to spend a weekend to celebrate our anniversary and then take Ellie up north for July 4th week, I got a call that my Mom had fallen and broken her humerus. Thankfully, it was in a doctor’s office. But when I got that call, our whole schedule changed. We got in the car two days later and drove 10 hours out East. We stayed for the week, came back for a few days and as I write this, we’ve been back for a little over a week. 

Why am I telling you this? Because everything I share is something the Lord teaches me too and in that mini season, the enemy was trying to challenge me. He was trying to get his ways that would have worked in the past to stop me. He used to say, “You can’t start anything, because of things like this.” “The other shoe is always going to drop.” From deaths of loved ones to surgeries to things like this, there have been so many things since I started walking with Jesus that could cause me to give up. But with each trial, no matter how long, the Lord has gotten me stronger. He’s done the opposite of what the enemy said would happen. Each trial reveals more of His character and more of my need for dependence on Him. I am so thankful. I am so thankful that I don’t need to buy into the enemy’s old lie that I won’t succeed. God’s got my back and He’s got a good plan for my life — and for you.

So if you’re like me, and you feel like the Lord has planted a vision in your heart or a seed of something He wants to harvest in this world, don’t give up. Don’t let life’s circumstances, no matter how much time they take away from what He’s called you to do — keep you from focusing on God. Let them be opportunities to see that He just might want to show you something you aren’t missing. He may just want to use that trial to catapult you to what’s next. It’s funny, because I kept saying to my husband how I felt like a rock in a boomerang. I felt like this little season pulled me so far back in that rubber band thing and put so much pressure on me, that the Lord used it to just catapult me and shoot me out of the pain, into purpose.

Don’t take your eyes of God. Hold onto Him in your storms. He’s always teaching you something in them. He may be quiet, but He’s showing you something. So you walk through it, listen for Him and trust Him. 

If God has got a calling on your life, nothing can stop it. Don’t ever forget that.

####

If you’d like to contribute to the missionary work of Megan and her husband at Tenwek you can click here.

If you’d like to read more blogs, there are hundreds of them to search.

If you’d like to listen to more podcasts you can go to You Tube or Spotify to check out a library of over 80 of them @getrealwithmeredith.

If you are looking for coaching or spiritual mentoring and one-on-one monthly calls you can go here to register.

We have a new program coming out this fall that I’m excited to be sharing with you in the next few weeks. It includes weekly videos that are actually teachings to help you grow closer to God. Eventually it will become a course, but YOU get to be in the founding group. I’ll have signup available on the next podcast.

If you’d like to learn about either of my books, you can check them out here or purchase directly on Amazon. I would so appreciate it if you read and wrote a review. Those make a difference!

If you are interested in the ministry of Guiding God’s Daughters, we will be announcing a live support group in Southwest Michigan for the fall in the next couple of weeks. If you are interested in becoming a GGD trained mentor, stay tuned for more on recruiting for that. If you’d like to sow into our ministry or become a financial partner, you can do that here.