Have you been asking God for direction but still feel stuck?

Maybe you've been praying for clarity about your purpose, yet fear, self-doubt, or uncertainty keeps you from taking the next step. In this encouraging solo episode, Collide founder Willow Weston continues her series on discerning God's calling, sharing how God guided her into ministry and the lessons she learned about recognizing His voice, embracing holy discontentment, and saying "yes" even when you don't feel qualified. If you've ever wondered what God is calling you to do next, this episode will encourage you to trust Him one step at a time.

Meet Willow Weston

This week, Collide founder Willow Weston takes the mic for another inspiring solo episode in her series on discerning God's calling. Through honest stories from her own journey into ministry, Willow explores how God often speaks through His Word, His people, our circumstances, and the restlessness He places in our hearts. She reminds us that God's plans are often bigger than our own—and that He delights in using ordinary people who are willing to trust Him.

In This Episode, You'll Discover…

• Four ways God often guides us when we're seeking His direction.
• What "holy discontentment" is—and how to know whether God is calling you toward something new.
• Why your "not me" list may be keeping you from God's best.
• How wise, godly counsel can help you recognize gifts you don't yet see in yourself.
• Why God often calls the least likely people to accomplish extraordinary things.
• How to recognize when an opportunity may actually be God's invitation to your calling.
• Why failure is often part of discovering what you were made to do.

How This Episode Will Encourage You

If you've been waiting until you feel more confident, more equipped, or more certain before saying yes to God, this conversation is for you. Willow reminds us that God doesn't call people because they have everything figured out—He calls people who are willing to trust Him. Your next step may not feel comfortable, but it could be the very step that leads you into the purpose you were created for.

It says, you've searched me, Lord, and you know me. Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely. Even if you haven't searched him, he has searched you. God has pursued you.

Even if you haven't pursued him, he knows you. He knows your every move, man.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast. We're a growing community of everyday chicks colliding with Jesus in our mess, our pain, our joy, and our stories.

We value showing up as we truly are.

So that's what you'll find here, walls and masks being torn down so that we can allow Jesus to meet us where we truly are and hear about other women doing the same. We can't wait to collide with you.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast.

I'm Willow Weston, the founder and director of Collide, and I'm super excited to continue this series that we've started on the podcast about discerning the call of God in our lives.

And I think I'm really excited about it because I know that so many of us are trying to figure out where is God and what is he calling me to do, and how am I being guided and directed in my life, and should I go north or south or left or right or this way or that way? And so it's. It's an interesting conversation to really talk about how do we know where God is calling us and what he's calling us to do?

And not that I have all the answers by any means. I'm just sharing my own personal experiences and stories and things that I've seen him do in my own life.

And last week I talked about how I was having these dreams and experiences as a new believer over 20 years ago, and at the same time that I was having those things happen to me and I was confused by them. They also were coupled with this godly counsel, coupled with evidence of the counsel that I heard.

And in all of that, in this kind of these voices coming out of my mouth, wanting to say things to young teenagers and the. This youth pastor and his wife who spoke in my life and said that they believed I was being called into ministry.

It was a complete turnaround from going into the business world and working, you know, for some corporation and carrying out my own plan to all of a sudden hearing that maybe I should consider going into ministry and carry out God's plan for my life.

And I think in order to find yourselves living out the life God intended for you, you have to be willing to lean into a direction that God might be guiding you toward Even if it's a direction you've never considered or wanted. And that's exactly what I had to do.

I leaned into this idea that this Pastor Rick and his wife Linda, who was the youth pastor at the time where I was a youth leader, where they were pointing me towards, they saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. And that's part of realizing what you are made to do.

Part of realizing what you're made to do is having an openness that what God sees in you might not, but be what you see in yourself. So why, why would we close ourselves off? Why would we say no to what we cannot comprehend?

Why would we make assumptions about our own abilities and capabilities? Why would say, I've never done that, so I'll never do that?

It's actually when you lean in towards an inkling or a way that you get to see if it opens up. It's when you have an openness to the idea that you can become even more than you already are, that you might just become more than you already are.

And so they spoke truth into my life and I applied to be an intern at a church. And this is crazy for a girl like me, like you have to understand, just, just slight background is that I had never been a church attender.

I'd never been a part of a youth group. And here I was. I had met Jesus and handed in my life and became a youth leader.

The first real youth group experience other than one other time in high school where a girl invited me to a youth group. The second experience I had in a youth group, I was literally called a leader. And now I'm applying to do ministry as a calling and a career.

For me, this just was never a chapter I would have ever considered in my story. And at the same time that I applied to be an intern at this parish, I also had to deal with this other path, this other plan.

See, I was almost done with my business degree and I was going to have to wait around through summer to the next fall to take this 400 level class to graduate to get my degree. And I wanted to finish so that I could make sense of the tens of thousands of dollars I spent on my education.

And I wanted to please my parents and my grandparents and the people who had invested in that. But as soon as I considered the idea that God might be leading me into vocational ministry, I kind of jumped all in.

And I closed one door and began to open another. I broke up with my boyfriend of several years. I jumped full steam into Ministry as a volunteer.

And then I ended up sending a letter to the dean of the that I went to asking him to waive the class that I had to take to graduate. And I knew this was a ridiculous thing to ask, like, why should he say yes to that, right? Like, if I was dean, I wouldn't say yes to that.

And I just wrote out my heart and I just told him, like, I'm the, I'm the girl in your class that's, you know, trying to get there. But at the same time, God unexpectedly showed up in my life and changed my life. And he's calling me to go into ministry.

And now this degree has become just a piece of paper to me because I'm being called in a completely new direction.

And I said, I know it's a crazy thing to ask, but I'm actually asking if you would consider waiving this high level class so I can get my degree now and go into my calling. And I knew, like, this is not going to happen, right? But for whatever reason, sweet Dean, he weighed the glass.

And in all my doubts and all my fear that maybe this wasn't what I should do, maybe I don't fit the part to go into ministry. God confirmed my direction by making a way where there seemed like there was no way.

And I'll tell you what, when God makes a way where there seems to be a no way, go that way.

I mean, can you even imagine the Red Sea parting for the Israelites so they could escape their own oppression and they get a hundred steps into the sea that's already parted and they run back out towards their oppressive land away from the promised land because of fear. I mean, can you picture it? Because sometimes I think we do that. I did that.

I had to go through a series of three interviews at the same time that this dean waived my class.

And here God was showing me through, you know, godly counsel and wisdom, he was showing me through making a way where there seemed like there was no way that this was the direction I should go. And I got my degree and I got to my interview with the senior pastor and Pastor Bob asked me if I'd be willing to try preaching. And I said no way.

Like I'll hang out with the elderly and nursing homes, I'll clean the toilets, I'll hang out with sassy teenagers. But no, no, no, like you don't want me to preach. I don't have anything to say. I've never taken a speech class, never taken Bible 101.

Plus, I don't want people to see my booty. As soon as we start boxing ourselves in or out with no ways we get in God's way. You hear that?

As soon as you start boxing yourself in or out with this no way language, you are actually getting in the way of what God wants to do in your life. And we do this because we have this not me list.

And I talk about this in the yes you Bible study that you can find on our store that we're finding is empowering women all over the place and it's so exciting. But we have these lists, like, not me because I'm shy, and not me because my past is too sketchy. And not me because I don't know the Bible.

And not me because I like to swear like a sailor and, you know, smoke like I don't know who like. But not me because I don't know how. And not me because people think I'm a hypocrite. Not me because I don't like attention.

Not me because I want to fly under the radar. Not because me because I'm old or because I'm young. We all have these lists. You have a list too. What's on your not me list? Not me because what?

Because I'll tell you what, that list is creating problems for your life. You want to go where God is going, but you can't get there if you keep letting this list guide and rule your life.

Discerning God for your direction and decisions cannot give that list a voice. I mean, sure, like if you are a terrible singer, then maybe you shouldn't try to lead, worship or try out for American Idol.

But if your list is bossing you around and telling you what not to try and what not to do, and it has nothing but fear and doubt and self debasing as its footing, you might want to tell that list where to go. I was sitting in that interview with this pastor and he asked me if I would try preaching. And I said, no way.

See, I walked away from the internship opportunity because he said to me, if you're not willing to try preaching and this is a pastoral internship, we're going to have to turn the internship down. And when I walked away, I felt sad. When you walk away from something you're made to do, you often feel sad.

I mean, look at the story in the Bible about the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and he asked Jesus, what should I do? He wants to know what he should do with his life to get the outcome he's hoping for. And Jesus says, you Know what you're made to do.

You have come to me right as God in the flesh. God concarnate God with elbows and nose and the ability to smell and eat s' mores and laugh and experience pain and weep.

And Jesus says, you came to me and asked me what you're to do, and I am telling you what you're to do. He says, I want you to give everything away to the poor. Jesus was basically telling this guy what his calling was, right?

He's being called to go into a life of ministry that impacts the the people in poverty and those on the margins and those who cannot feed their babies or drink clean water. And this guy got his answer. And you know what he did with God's answer? He walked away sad.

And I walked away from that internship interview and the internship itself sad. If your spirit feels sad or perturbed or anxious or second guessing your own self doubt or you're mad at you, maybe you should ask why.

What is it that's going on in me that's making me feel this way? Sometimes this is what I call holy discontentment. Holy discontentment is different than regular old discontentment. I mean, right?

Sometimes we're discontent because we're comparing or we're envious or we're wanting what we shouldn't or pursuing things that we'll never fill.

But when we experience holy discontentment, there's this sense that, like, we can't sleep at night and the world doesn't feel like we're at home in it. Something's not right. We keep being dissatisfied.

And our heart has already gone through all the necessary changes and attitudes adjustments and prayer to ask God, what is it about us that needs to change?

And we're still processing and no amount of talking is making it better and we feel restless and no amount of begging God for a different answer than the one we heard is helping.

And if you feel like maybe you haven't fully tapped into your potential or your destiny, maybe it's time to turn to God and ask him what's going on within you? I love the psalmist who asks of himself in Psalm 43:5, why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. This psalmist is literally preaching to himself and he's his own counselor, right? He's like, why am I so down? Why am I disturbed?

And then he reminds himself, put your hope in God because he's your Savior. Sometimes I think we need to say to self. Self. What is going on within you that you feel this way?

And then we need to remind ourselves where our hope shall be placed. Why? Why should we put our hope in God? Because God knows you better than you know yourself.

And God knows where you should go better than you know yourself. Psalm 139 reminds us just how much our God knows us. Look it up.

If you've never read the Bible or you haven't read this passage in a long time, I invite you. Like turn to Psalm 139 and let it saturate your being. It says, you've searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise.

You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you, Lord, know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before, and you'd lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. God has searched you, even if you haven't searched him. He has searched you.

God has pursued you even if you haven't pursued Him. He knows you. He knows your every move, man. He knows your thoughts and the thought you will think next that you have not even yet formulated.

He knows when you will go out and when you will lie down. He knows every word that will come out of your mouth. And you know what? If you're anything like me, you've lost sight of yourself.

You've gotten so busy, so rushed, so full, so over involved, so overwhelmed, so part of this thing and that thing, so aware of everyone else's needs that you are not even aware of your own feelings, thoughts, longings, hopes and dreams. And dreams dash. But God knows.

And so when you finally realize that you keep hitting your head against holy discontentment, it might be time to turn to Him. Who knows? Let's talk a little bit more about holy discontentment and I'll try to give you an illustration.

But when you maybe work for a company for 10 years and you've spent the last three years hating your job and complaining to everyone around you about how much this job sucks, you could look at that and think it's holy discontentment. But I would challenge you to first pray about your attitude. Because maybe your job doesn't need to change. Maybe you need to change.

Maybe the way that you think about others needs to change. Maybe your your respect needs to change, your gratitude needs to change.

If that's the case, you're discontent because your heart's not at home where it should be, because something in you needs to change.

But if you have a right heart and a right attitude and you've been working your darnest for a company, as this example goes, and being faithful, and there's this inkling, this restlessness within you, and it keeps not going away. It could be God trying to get you to move out of what you know into what you don't. And I've seen this so many times.

A lot of people don't heed the call of God. They don't go when God says go.

And then sometimes God has to set up their circumstances in such a way to push them to go where they would never go on their own. And that's never fun. It's never fun to have God pry your hand off what you're holding onto too tightly.

It's never fun to have God make you rest by allowing you to get sick because you wouldn't rest otherwise. And he wants to say some things to you there in your couch while you have influenza.

It's never fun to have God put you in an adult timeout because you need to pull yourself together before things get worse. But sometimes, if we don't pay attention to that holy discontentment, that restlessness, God will try and help us.

It's almost like God puts a rock in our shoe to get us to take our shoes off. It's almost like God maybe lays us off from the job we'd never quit, so we end up getting the job we were made to do.

It's like we get transferred overseas so that God can move our kids to a place where they can get a bigger worldview because he has an even bigger calling on their lives than we could ever imagine.

I mean, sometimes when we don't listen to that restlessness that I am made to do something else, or I'm called to go and God told me to go, and I haven't gone. Sometimes God will pick us up and pluck us out of where we are and drop us somewhere else so we get the message.

Sometimes we're sad and anxious and discontent for a holy reason. And that's where I was at when I turned down that internship. I walked away from an opportunity to be used by God to change lives.

And I said no, because I didn't think I had what it took. And I was sad and I didn't have peace. Pay attention to your peace. If you don't have peace, take your feelings back to God's word.

I felt incapable, unequipped and insufficient to be, quote, unquote, a minister. And I went to God's Word, and I was a new believer. I didn't know the Bible, but I went to God's Word with those feelings I had.

And God turned me right around. Because what I saw over and over again about God is that God uses the most unlikely people. God used Christian killers. God used donkeys.

God used prostitutes. God used the lowest of the low. God used the weak. God used the elderly. Noah was, you know, used. And he looked like a crazy man.

God used stutterers and people with learning disabilities, and God used shady tax collectors. God even used people who ran from him. So what I saw in God's Word challenged what I saw in myself.

When you immerse yourself in God's Word, all those collisions that you study and read over time prepare you to know what to do when you desperately need an answer. Colliding with God tells you who he is and what he's about.

And when you know who he is and what he's about, you will know who you're called to be in the business you're called to do. And some of you need to collide with God and His Word. You're trying to operate on your own understanding, your own capabilities and your own plan.

And that's why you're sad and why you're discontent and why you're stuck wandering, wondering where to go next. So I went back to Pastor Bob, the senior pastor of the church, where they turned me down for the internship because I felt incapable.

And I said, I'm wondering if you'll reconsider. Because I had a conversation with God. And as I look at the life of Jesus, I can't help but see that he uses the most unlikely people.

And I said, this is what I sense that he said to me. Never say no to what God can do through you. So here I am, and I'm taking him at His Word.

And see, I could say that statement and I could know with confidence it was God speaking to me because it aligned with what he says in the Bible. And in. Even in my fear and inadequacy, I knew that this thing that I sensed, it looked like God, it smelled like God, it had God written all over it.

See, because God uses oddballs and nitwits and get around girls. So why would I be the exception? And why would you? Why would we be the ones who have to have everything together first?

Why would we have to be the ones who have to pray all day long and like it in order to Get a sign. And why would we have to be the ones who screw up at all, or we completely and totally mess up our entire calling?

I mean, that's not how God works, and that's not who God calls. And that's certainly not who God uses. Well, this pastor could have responded to me in a variety of ways.

He could have said, it's too late, like, you had your chance and you said no. He could have said, you have too little belief, you aren't confident enough. He could have said, you missed the opportunity.

We already filled the spots. He could have said, you're a fraidy cat and you don't fit the bill. But he didn't say any of those things.

Pastor Bob gave me the internship, and last week I talked about the four ways I often see God speak. He speaks through his word, his spirit, his people, and your circumstances. And all. All of those things were speaking to me in this moment.

And I was now up to a decision. I was being handed an opportunity, and you need to pay attention to the opportunities that come your way.

A yes to this opportunity could lead to another opportunity that leads to another opportunity that leads to holy cow. Never in my wildest imagination what I think this life possible for me. Do you get that? I don't know what opportunities are being handed to you today.

Maybe something's being handed to you that doesn't feel like an opportunity. Maybe it feels like a challenge or a lesson. But maybe the opportunity isn't how you respond.

Maybe the opportunity that's being handed to you today is about if you're going to make a decision out of fear, you're going to make a decision out of faith.

Maybe there's an opportunity being handed to you today where you get to over and over again show that you have character and you have integrity and you have respect. And maybe you don't feel like it's paying off right now, but someone's watching you and one day you will be called up to a higher place.

Pay attention to the opportunities you're being given because you might be one yes and a handful of opportunities away from your dream and your destiny and your calling. If that is true, if you might be one yes and a handful, just a handful of opportunities away from your dream and your destiny and your calling.

Then what is holding you back? From your yes, what is holding you back? Get it figured out, friends. I had to go and I had a wrestle and I had to figure it out.

And I decided, no way I'm being handed an opportunity and I'm going to believe by faith that somehow, some way, God could use someone like me. And so I got this internship and the youth pastor said, okay, you're up to bat three weeks in a row.

You're gonna preach with no sense of how to write a sermon, how to, you know, do speeches and no training, no Bible 101. I got up to that the first week. Oh, my gosh. The first week I got up to preach a passage. You know what passage was assigned to me?

Well, first, I'll tell you what happened the first week I ever preached a sermon.

A boy who was also an intern with me at this church dumped me after about seven or eight months of dating and the week before had told me that he wanted to marry me. He dumped me the week I had to get up in front of him and preach a sermon on the passage that says, God will never leave you or forsake you.

And I got up there and told some terrible story and started bawling and said to the kids, God will never leave you or forsake you. The next day, Pastor Rick calls me in his office and we debrief what happened the night before.

And basically, you know, in kind of one of those nice, covered up Christian ways, he was like, that was terrible. It sucked. But he didn't say those words. But pretty much like that. That wasn't great. Like, we can go up from here, right?

He says, you're back up the next week. Your backup. I was like, of course it sucked. I told you I don't want to do this. I never wanted to do it. I don't think I'm going to be good at it.

I don't feel cut out for it. He said, you're back up next week. You guys, just because you fail doesn't mean you're not where God wants you to be.

I totally get it if you're forcing something you shouldn't.

Like if you're trying to be, you know, a CrossFit coach and you can't even do a squad, or like I said, you're trying to be a singer, but you suck at singing. Like, I get that. But part of leaning into the direction God is calling you isn't always pretty.

So be willing to fail, but also be willing to get back up again. Why? Because you trust God and you trust the people you've gathered around you in your life to speak truth to you.

And they told you that you should do this. And you know that they don't just tell you that you look good in mustard yellow when you don't.

No good human being who loves Jesus, whom you've asked to speak into your life, is going to tell you to sell everything and go looking for dinosaurs in a desert because you had a dream that you should.

If someone in your life sees something in you that you don't, and they're right there with you when you fail, and they're right there with you inviting you to get back up again, trust God by trusting them, allow people to confirm in you what they see. Allow people to say, this is what I see in you, and then lean into becoming more of that.

Allow people to alleviate your blind spots by challenging you with the truth about what they don't see. If someone says, dude, I love you, but you're not the counselor type, listen, save yourself years of school and money and disappointment.

Sometimes people get it wrong. But that's why we surround ourselves with wise counsel. Not a wise counselor.

But where there's a multitude of people confirming in you what they see in you, and they're all saying the same thing, I would suggest it's best to hear them and believe what they say. And here's the deal. If your people are inviting you to get back up and do something again, know this. God has given you cheerleaders and support.

And if you go down, you don't go down alone. And that's a beautiful thing.

I got back up the second time, got back up the third time, and by the end of the third sermon, I could feel it within my own spirit, within my own body. I felt like power was coming out from me onto people. And the pastor walked up to me and said, home run.

But that didn't matter as much as teenage girls who were coming up afterwards and telling me that they too wanted my rescuer, that they too were hurting, that they had been abused, that they were suffering, that they wanted God. And that was the moment that I knew all of this, that I had heard and sensed and wondered about, but was afraid of was true.

God was calling me into this kind of work. And here's what I know for sure. When you're where you're supposed to be, when you're fully tapped into what you're made to do, you'll know it.

Because the evidence will be fruit. The evidence will be lives change. The evidence will be the world becoming a better place because of what you're doing.

The evidence will be you knowing that even in the face of inadequacy and fear, you're right at home in the place God has called you and made you for.

And I often think, what if I would have walked away from what I was made to do because it was scary and hard and uncomfortable and it required sacrifice and letting go of my own plan. And I think about that same thing for you.

What if you're walking away from what you're made to do because it's scary and you're afraid and you're second guessing yourself and you're hiding your gifts and burying a hole and, and, and putting them in there and you're not sharing them with the world. Which, by the way, is our next event for women coming up in May. You might want to check it out, ladies. What if you're doing that?

What if you're not living a life that you were destined to live, Made to live because you don't want to get uncomfortable because you don't want to sacrifice, because you're not sure it's God, because you want go hand it to you on a silver platter even though he's told you so many times, but you keep not doing what he's told you to do. I sat with a woman yesterday for lunch and she has felt for years like she's supposed to write.

And she's gone to conferences and seminars and workshops to learn how to be a better writer. And she has all this information and this knowledge, but she keeps not writing.

And when she talks about it, every once in a while she would get emotional.

And at one point during our lunch, I just looked at her and said, I've noticed now three times you start to cry when you talk about how desperately you long to use this gift that you have to impact other people. And yet you keep not doing it, Questioning what we're made to do and where we're called to go.

Sometimes we do it for weeks and months, but sometimes we do it for years and sometimes we even do it for decades. And we already know the answer. Answer. We already know we've prayed and God's already answered our prayers.

And yet we're waiting for a different answer. We're waiting for the answer that says no. Don't write, don't put out the book, don't sing, don't get up on a stage and do opera.

Don't use your brain and join you know, this organization and create systems that will make a better nonprofit. Don't travel the and help impoverished people with your gift of compassion.

I don't know what it is, but how many people are still praying, asking God what to do when they already know the answer?

And if that is you I am, I am pleading with you right now in this moment that there is a destiny and a dream and a calling upon your life and you have to move and lean into the ways that God has already told you you're to go. Whose life is waiting on your. Yes. That's the thing that kills me is like this girl yesterday, she wants to write because she wants to bless people.

She wants to impact people.

And she said to me, I don't know, maybe it's selfish or maybe I'm not going to be good or maybe people won't like it or she has this whole list or maybe I should wait and do it in another season. And it just struck me as she's talking and I said to her, wait a second.

I mean, sure, like, I don't know God's will for your life, but your voice right now in the season you're in, as a working mom with young kids, you can say things in this season that you won't say if you wait 10 more years. And the things that you can say now will impact people in similar seasons. So, sure, you can wait 10 years, but you won't have the same things to say.

And the same is true for all of us if we're holding back for months or another 10 years to do the thing we're called to do. Who's waiting and who needs your yes, so I'll end this way.

Discerning God and where he's taking your life, it's never done alone, requires faith in a relationship with God where you can process all the feels and it will mean reframing how you view yourself. And it will always require a fierce trust in who God is so you know who to be at every turn. And it cannot be experienced without your yak.

And it requires a paying attention. Paying attention, friends, to what God is trying to tell you is key, to know where you're going and how you're gonna get there.

So during this series, I want to end in a prayer every time, praying for you as you discern what it is God saying to you. So, God, I pray for those that are listening today by your spirit. Will you meet them even now?

Will you set aside the distractions and the to do lists and the frenzy around them and the busyness and the place that their phone is telling them they have to be next? And God, will you give them a sense? Will you give them an inkling? Will you whisper in their ear? Will they hear a word from you?

God, I believe that they long to live the life they were made to live. And maybe things have gotten really confusing and really mucky along the way. Will you bring clarity, God? Will you bring fresh vision?

If you've already given them the answer, will you just one more time give the answer to them that they need? Lord, may they put their hope in you and may you guide their life. Thank you, Jesus.

Amen.

You guys, thank you for being with me today. And if this podcast blessed you in some way and you know of someone who is longing for direction in their life, share it with them. It's.

It's like giving a free gift. And we just yearn and desire here at Collide for our work to change lives.

And if you think that this podcast can do that in someone's life, I just encourage you to share it with them. And if you want to hear more about Collide, check us [email protected] and I hope you have a tremendous week and we'll catch you next time.