Calling

All Christians are called by God. Our first and most important call is to believe in him, to trust him. There is a second call, inextricable from the first, to obey him. These callings are clear and crucial. Callings with respect to careers or seasons of special activity—these are real but also subjective, which is to say, we can confuse ourselves by supposing we hear God’s voice when what we are hearing is our own. So, while this latter calling gets a lot of attention in Christian circles, we do better to think of it as the least important. 

It’s helpful to consider the word’s roots. We tend to think of “calling” as a kind of justification for how we prioritize our lives. After all, if it is God calling on us to undertake a certain mission, other concerns can be sacrificed. But we should not miss the idea that “calling” implies that someone else is calling us to do something. In Christian jargon we mean that it is God doing the calling. Consider John 10.27: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. Apostles were called in this way. The Gospels dramatize the effect of it by providing little explanation for why they would drop everything to do so. It seems that when they followed they had little, maybe no idea of where they were going.  

God called many individuals throughout the Bible to very specific tasks, of course. In some cases this was done with little drama. God told Noah to build and ark. Genesis records only that he set about doing it. But there are numerous examples of skid-marks. Think of Jonah, who ran away from God’s bidding. Or Saul/Paul, who was literally knocked to the ground. A very loose translation of his response: “Hey, what’s going on?!” Or, there’s the case of the most important leader in Jewish history, Moses. When God came to him with the Big Assignment, Moses put up a fight, resisting with arguments five different times. His last argument: “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.” The Bible says this made God angry, but it makes me laugh (so I think God was laughing to himself, too). I love it. It seems so much more appropriate when an individual feels inadequate to the task than the one who careens forward, eyes closed, full of confidence. It is more than clear that Moses did not call himself. 

To call yourself is not the same as God’s call. This does not mean we can’t make vocational decisions. In fact, we must. Our general call to obedience includes such labors as raising children; providing for the needs of our families, and others; and the very broad category of acting as administrators in societal operations. The very fact that we are alive implies that we have work to do. But as we proceed with our decisions, we must proceed with humility. God may have different plans for us than what we imagine. Our vocational decisions may be utterly mistaken. We proceed with confidence, but our confidence comes from the knowledge of God’s abiding love, and our confidence is confirmed as we act in obedience. 

I read an article recently in which the author discussed the subject of calling. It’s interesting that the author was identified as a leader, a popular speaker, a seminary professor, an award-winning writer, and a pastor’s wife. The evidence is, little doubt, clear with the last four attributions, whereas to call someone a leader is an idea clothed in presumption. Just because the crowd is going your way and you are up front doesn’t mean they are following you. (That reminds me of a favorite bumper sticker: I may be slow but I’m in front of you.) It may actually mean that you are in the way. 

I’ve experienced some tertiary “callings” in my life. After I graduated from high school, I had no vision, no particular dreams. I thought I would take a year off school, maybe to heal from the monotony of it. My dad confronted me, though, and urged me to go to a particular college. “Just give it a try,” he said. This surprised me a little, given that my dad, though a Christian and a loving father, was not one to give much in the way of specific, personal direction. I was pleased at his interest but I objected, pointing out that I didn’t have much money and that I couldn’t afford the cost of the school he recommended. He was ready for that and told me that Mom and he would help me out, as far as expenses were concerned. That, to me, felt like a calling. It was an abrupt change in direction for me. It was not an idea I had concocted. It required me to honor my father’s wishes. I don’t believe a calling has to be a surprise, or something you don’t want to do, but I do believe caution is necessary when it comes to calling, and that emotional “highs”, in particular, should be looked at with suspicion. 

When I graduated from college I still had no sense of calling. I envied some of my classmates who seemed so directed. They knew the careers they wanted to pursue and when they graduated they were on to those pursuits. My uncertainty came with a cost, as I went the first five years after graduation trying out various jobs and taking various graduate classes. I finally settled into a career, though, that remained stable for 33 years. It was a career in which I was successful and which gave me significant satisfaction, due to the important services I helped provide. 

But there was always this nagging sense of my vocation not being what I had hoped. It never took me to a place of greatness. I suspect this shortfall is really part of God’s design, too. He doesn’t want us to be satisfied with this earth. It’s not possible to be satisfied with a world that is in every way broken. It’s not possible to work alongside people, hoping to pull together with magnificent results when all the people involved are also broken. The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. Their wandering was a picture for us of our sojourn on the earth. We live in the desert. We want to make it bloom, and that is good. That’s our job. We will get it to bloom here and there for a little bit. But the main thing is to keep following him, because that is how we will all get out of the desert.  

The Christian’s ongoing call is to respond to the needs put in front of us that we actually have capacity to address. That’s it. Do the things that need to be done. And if the list is too long, as it tends to be, use our God-given brain to prioritize. Every little  decision is of value. Our calling is to trust God and do our best to make every decision line up with his character. When we are faithful in these little things, he will give us important work to do. He knows better than we do what work is important.