Calling

I recently did a study on Calling that resulted in a seminar for a high school retreat last week. I am also hoping to develop it further into a teaching series to be used on Sundays and retreats.

We all wrestle with the question of God's calling, and are always trying to discern what God is calling us to do with our lives. Yet as I dive into Scripture and read other works on this subject I believe that a big part of this struggle might be that we're trying to discern the wrong thing.

Our calling isn't so much a matter of what we are supposed to do, rather it is much more about what we are supposed to be. At the end of the first creation story in Genesis God speaks, "Let us create human beings in our image." When Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is he affirms the Jewish Shema and quotes a command in Leviticus saying, "Love God and love others." Essentially I believe that our calling is to bear God's image to a broken world and to love God and others. This is what i would refer to as our general calling. We all share it and it is lifelong. Another way to refer to this is as our vocation, which is from the Latin word "vocare" meaning "voice." So we discover our general calling by listening to a voice, the voice of God speaking our calling as image-bearers upon us.

Yet we also have a specific calling. As I studied calling stories in Scripture this became clear. Noah was to build an ark, Moses was to lead God's people out of Egypt, Jeremiah was to be a prophet to the nations, and Jonah was to preach to Ninevah. Our specific calling is simply how we live out our general calling in a specific context. Our specific calling can change, and each individual has a different one. I refer to this as our station in life. This is a concept I borrow from a sermon I recently heard on vocation. Discovering our specific call takes discernment and the discernment process is different for everyone.

We live in a culture that defines our calling more by our station than by our vocation. In other words our identity is wrapped up in what we do, and not by who are. This is why when we lose our job or change careers it effects us so greatly. I find freedom and liberation in knowing that if I am living out my vocation and am bearing God's image to a broken world, then I can find joy and fulfillment in any station. So as I find myself in a season of waiting, trying to discern my next station I can rest in the fact that God spoke a calling into my life at the very beginning of the human project. Fredrick Buechner once said, "Vocation is where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need." Now that is something worth living into!

I have more thoughts on this. If you're interested invite me to your church!