Call it Out

When I was young(er than I am today) I had a few particular people in my life that saw something in me. I had a couple of teachers and spiritual leaders point out certain characteristics that they claimed I could use throughout my life to influence people. My parents specifically liked to tell me that I was a great leader, a college professor would tell me that I had a gift in teaching, and an evangelist or two, when visiting our church, told me that I had a future in the ministry. These people spoke into my life and called something out of me.

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a pastor. So their words rang true from the moment they spoke them. For other people, these callings might lie dormant and unused for months or years. But when you speak into someone's life and call something out of them, you never how or when or where God is going to use it.

We need to speak prophetically into each other's lives. We need to call things out - gifts, passions, goals, dreams, desires. Isn't that what Jesus was so good at? He saw the martyr in a denier named Peter. He called it out by calling him "the Rock."

Biblical Prophets were less about "telling the future" and more about calling out truths of what was happening and what the result would be of certain actions. Prophets call things out of people.

I want to call the best out of others the way Jesus did. That's leadership. That's discipleship. You should want the same. Don't do it haphazardly though - you might be influencing someone's future for the better or for the worse.