Do you know what your purpose is and how to practically fulfill it? This week my friend Noelle Mena at Christian Women Affiliate ( http://christianwomenaffiliate.com/) shared in her ezine about an opportunity to review the book, Step Out And Take Your Place: How To Discover and Live Your Everyday Calling, written by assessment mentor, author, speaker, and Co-Founder of Koinonia Business Women Krista Dunk.
The title intrigued me because one of my passions is encouraging women to find and to fulfill their life purpose. Being a visual learner and a lover of creative art, I was immediately drawn in to the beautiful, creative cover of the book with a red-colored silhouette of a woman standing out among the crowd of people in the background (black silhouettes), and she was jumping into the air with joy. I LOVE the cover!
You can pre-order the soft cover, printed book or buy the downloadable ebook version now (as well as the companion workbook) here – or wait to buy the book during its official launch May 24-26, 2011, and receive some great bonus gifts with it offered by other women of God. http://www.stepoutandtakeyourplace.com/buyresources.htm.
I enjoyed this ebook and think it’s wonderful! Krista’s style is conversational, it is marked with Christ’s humility, and she is passionate about God and her topic. It resonated with me, especially concerning battling fear about stepping fully into your God-given calling and using your gifts for Him.
Because of that fear, I related to Krista’s story in the preface about winning a coloring contest when she was 6 years old and won tickets for her and her whole family to go to the circus. She was very shy then, and when there was an announcement for all the coloring contest winners to come to the center of the ring, she didn’t go. She missed the opportunity to step out and take her place.
This was the defining moment in Krista’s life and the basis for this book. She challenges us, “How many of us haven’t stepped out and taken our place? Conversely, how many of us do not even know what place to step in to yet?”
Krista’s research from a survey in 2010 of scores of godly women (and some men) revealed that sixty percent of the respondents didn’t even know one of the most basic gifts-related information about themselves – their spiritual gifts. (These are church attenders!)
I believe so many people don’t know what their gifts are and don’t realize that God wants to use them in incredible ways for His glory. The enemy also tries to cause people to hold back in fear and to hide, because he knows God’s treasure is inside each person and he doesn’t God glorified.
In this ebook, Krista exhorts you to stop hiding and to begin to shine, using your gifts and fulfilling your calling from God. She shows you not only what your gifts are, but in a practical way how to use them for God’s glory and HIS Divine purposes.
When you’re not using your gifts or doing what God has called you to be, you can have what Krista calls “dried up spirits.” Boredom. Frustration. What Krista called “a sense of unsettled emptiness.” You’re constantly searching. One example she gave for this is when she had a state job in Washington, entering data entry in the computer. It was tedious work that she creatively called “cubicle jail.” God moved her out of that job to other, more fulfilling work.
One of my favorite fun examples Krista gave in the ebook for using your gifts was Tinkerbell in chapter 4. I love Tinkerbell, and God gave Krista and me the same revelation about Tinkerbell in her new movie: that Tinkerbell didn’t like her own “builder” (tinkering) gift and wanted a more glamorous gift, like the water or garden fairies had. How often we as Christians envy and covet others’ gifts – or try to fit into a gift that God never intended for us! Be you!
How do you find out what your gifts and your calling are? In this ebook, Krista offers creative, practical tools like the Gift Discover Cycle ™, the Calling Components™, the ME CHART™ (available when you purchase her companion workbook) , and the spiritual gifts tests online to help you find and fulfill your purpose and calling.
Krista writes that like Queen Esther, God has people that you are assigned to influence. People are waiting on you to use your gifts. You were made for so much more! In this ebook, God will challenge your status quo, as He did with Krista, who was challenged by God to get out of her “little box” thinking, to grow, and to be transformed by Him to step into her calling.
Probably my favorite thing about Krista’s book is that it is one of simple, practical faith. She writes, “Want to have a good life? Want to understand all that God has for you? Go to the Bible.”
Krista shares several true stories in this ebook demonstrating how important it is to find and live your purpose – and to depend on God to do it! I loved Dondi Scumaci’s real, raw, and regretful story in chapter 9 of running on empty for months with deadlines and plane flights – and then trying to speak before an audience when she hadn’t been in God’s presence!
Another inspiring story in this ebbok was that of Noreen Jacks in chapter 10. Noreen is Krista’s partner in leading www.TheWallOfPrayer.com. When she said yes to God, God did amazing things in her life and opened doors she couldn’t have ever opened herself. Are you saying yes to God?
One of my favorite quotes by Krista was in chapter 16, “To carry out our calling in life as God desires, we need to show up with a spirit of love.”
Krista says that when we show up with our gifts, amazing things happen. We’re not called just to be Sunday Morning Christians, but ministers in the marketplace, too. I loved how Krista shared how God practically uses people in secular jobs – that we don’t have to use our gifts, talents, and passions only on Sunday mornings.
My son-in-law Kyle comes to mind. He has an excellent job as a computer programmer, and God is using his finances to help send our daughter Heather on short-term mission trips and to help the church with its needs.
The non-fiction ebook is 165 pages long, and each of the 20 chapters contains Biblically-based, thought-provoking chapters, as well as a “Summary,” “Prayer,” “Ask Yourself,” and “Affirmations” section which help you to dig deeper. The chapters are well-organized and flow smoothly, and I read the ebook in one sitting. Krista’s book ministered to me personally, encouraging and inspiring me to step up to the larger place God has for me – not because of me, but because of Him and His Kingdom purposes.
Her gentle spirit, the love of God, her passion for her subject, and Christ’s humility shine in Krista throughout this book. She challenged me to not settle for anything less than God has for me, and I believe this ebook will encourage you, too, to step forward into your great God-ordained purpose and destiny.
You can find out more about her book and ebook by clicking here. http://www.stepoutandtakeyourplace.com/buyresources.htm.
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