Your Dream vs. God's Calling
There’s a kind of heartbreak that can come with the calling of Jesus. Sometimes it can feel like God is taking away YOUR dream for HIS calling. I’ve felt this many times and, if I can be honest, I’ve sometimes resented God for calling me into the unknown.
Over the past 24 years of my life I have seen my dreams shift over and over again. I was (and probably still kind of am) the person who sees a movie and wants to be whatever the main character is, which always scared my father to the point where he was very selective with what movies he let me see.
I always had a dream hidden in my heart to write songs for people. Songs that moved people, maybe even changed people. As I traversed the music industry in my late teens, there were times when that dream was actualized and times when I saw that dream falling apart.
There was a big shift in my life when I felt God calling me to build our church, MOSAIC in Los Angeles. I didn’t totally understand it and I definitely didn’t agree, but I obeyed. I left my solo music career and became the worship pastor at 21 years old. It was the first time I really felt God challenge me heart and soul.
For a long time, I felt like this new calling was a punishment. I felt like my dreams were being taken away from me instead of trusting that God saw my hidden dreams. I quickly learned the hard way that if I obeyed without trust, I couldn’t see what God had for me. It was so easy for me to see God when I was getting what I wanted, but when God wanted to reorient my sight toward what He wanted, I lost sight of Him.
After being so miserably confused with God for so long, one day a light came on. My dad had given a talk one Sunday about how even when we think we are giving 100% of ourselves, we are usually keeping some in reserve to retain control with God. We think we are giving all of ourselves, but we never actually do.
In that moment I realized that even though I had obeyed and responded to God’s change of direction in my life, I hadn’t trusted and therefore I hadn’t given myself to what I was being called to create. I had held onto dreams, relationships and a specific vision for my future and kept God from informing those things. I wanted a relationship with Him but I wanted all the control.
I’ve learned that God will use your specific talents and passions to fuel His mission, and after four years in this process I’ve seen my old dreams resurface. I’ve seen God take those small dreams and turn them into dreams worthy of His purpose, worthy of His life. So often our dreams are actually too small for God to fit into them, and what God wants is for us to invite Him in and hand them over to Him.
About three years ago I went over to a friend’s studio to demo a song I had written. We ended up writing a worship song together, and that day turned into another day, which turned into a week and then another week of just writing worship songs. It had been decades since our church had written music and what we were creating began to feel like the sound of OUR tribe. It felt like the heartbeat of our church coming alive. That sound was my dream and God’s calling aligning.
From that moment on I have seen and felt the promise of Jesus more than ever. I trust and have confidence in what God has called me to. He has given me a passion to build the church and that has opened doors to writing songs about Jesus for people that have never heard His name before. God continues to open doors for me and reveal dreams and call me into spaces that I would have never stepped into if I hadn’t trusted His calling.
I had a vision for my life, but God has a vision for the world that we get to step into when He calls us.
That's when life is most beautiful.
What is God calling you into?
Mariah McManus Goss
Mariah Goss is the Worship Pastor at MOSAIC in Los Angeles, California. Mariah is the leader of Mosaic MSC and currently splits her time between LA and traveling with the band. You can connect with MOSAIC MSC and purchase their new album Glory & Wonder, here.
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