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Bible College – is it for me?

How do you know?

What are
the basic ingredients that
make up a genuine call?

Is
there any way of testing what
you feel?

How do you go
about discerning what is just
your own idea and what is the
genuine pull of God upon
your life?


Here are certain
key ideas that crop up again
and again.

Circumstances
play a large part.
Quite often the Lord
changes circumstances or rearranges
them, so that you
are brought into a position
where going to College is no
longer an impossibility. He
frees you from responsibilities
that would otherwise have
been a hindrance.

His Word comes at
you from
different angles, with an insistent
and regular emphasis.
This is more than opening
your Bible at random and indulging
in ‘bible bingo’.
Whole passages as well as
single texts speak directly
into your circumstances.
Sermons that you comfortably
thought were meant for
others leave you in no doubt
that ‘that Word was for me’.

Other people
usually have
some input. When a number
of different people on different
occasions begin to suggest
that you should be thinking
seriously about Bible College,
then their advice and insight
are not to be discarded.
Sometimes other Christians
can see our gifts and potential
more clearly than we can.

Information is
essential. It is
very unlikely that God would
ever call you to a College you
had never heard of. The Holy
Spirit does not work in a mystical
vacuum. If there is any
awareness of a call at all,
then it is your responsibility
to begin to explore the areas
where the Lord might be able
to make that call a reality.
That means finding out, reading
up, praying over and
thinking through all the available
literature.

Finance is a
factor. God’s seal
on a call often comes by way
of resources being made
available unexpectedly. That
does not mean that every
penny is immediately placed
in your hand. But sufficient is
provided to make you realise
that He can be trusted in
these very necessary practicalities.
God’s will carried out
in God’s way never lacks
God’s supply.

See yourself at College.
Dreaming dreams and seeing
visions is one way the Lord
brings us to the point of recognising
that this is more
than just ‘my idea’. The Lord
often allows us to feel comfortable
with the idea and
eventually long for it with an
intensity that will not leave us
until we say yes to His evident
will for us.

Prayer is vital,
and vitalising. At every stage of testing a call
an attitude of prayer is to be
maintained. In prayer His will
becomes clear and His direction
is confirmed. The more
we pray about it, the more He
arranges circumstances,
speaks through His Word,
provides information, advises
us through others and
provides resources.