Human

“What are your thoughts around a ‘calling’? I’m just not sure what I think about that term anymore,” a friend of mine said to me recently. I leaned in because this was something I actually had been thinking about lately and I was feeling just as unsure about the language of a “calling,” too.

If you’ve grown up in the Church, or been around Christians for any length of time, you’ve more than likely heard this language around having a personal “calling” on your life. We can even see this in the secular world when we hear someone say, “I’ve found my calling – I’m going to be a drummer!” (I’m thinking here of Lane Kim in Gilmore Girls, though she grew up in the Church, too.)

As my friend and I talked about it, we both came to the agreement that this language has been extremely unhelpful in our lives. We’re both in our late twenties and experiencing major unexpected career changes, and out of our duty to be faithful to our “callings” we feel swept up in a blackhole, paralyzed in what to do and how to move forward.

Am I positive that this is God’s will for my life? What about this over here? Is this God’s will? Oh, I really would love to do that, but I’m just not sure I’ve heard God say “Yes, go for it.” Is it really the right decision?

This language, I’m sure along with a lot of other Church baggage, has embedded a deep belief in my whole being that everything I really want and long for is selfish and egocentric.

It’s convinced me that I need to nail all my dreams to the Cross not out of openhanded submission but as a “death to self” for the sake of righteousness.

But I already have the righteousness of Christ, says a whisper in my ear…

Maybe it’s just me, but have we used “calling” and “God’s will” too synonymously? Are they even the same thing?

I don’t have an answer for how to work this out because I’m still deep in the thick of it, of realizing the legalism that is still so wired within me — but just as a thought experiment, what if we approached this differently? Because I’m just not convinced that it’s God’s will or His desire for me to feel so paralyzed and stuck with no vision for my future. And if I’m being honest, I couldn’t tell you what my “calling” is anyway, even if I wanted to, because I don’t know.

Would it be so crazy to believe that our “calling” and God’s will for us are as simple as John 15:4?

Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.

In tandem with 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22:

Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Don’t stifle the Spirit. Don’t despise prophecies, but test all things. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil.

And 1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7-8

For this is God’s will, your sanctification…For God has not called us to impurity but to live in holiness. Consequently, anyone who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you His Holy Spirit.

What if my “calling” and God’s will are that I become a certain type of person, conformed to the image of Christ?

And what if that means that there are many ways for Him to work that out in us?

I have a writing gift. That doesn’t mean that I am “called” to write a book (even though I’d love to one day) or do a certain type of writing. I am responsible for stewarding this gift, for being faithful in glorifying and honoring God in this gift. But there have been no specifics from on high that have told me exactly what to do with it.

My friend has a pastoral gift. That doesn’t mean she’s “called” to be a pastor (and depending on one’s theology, some would say it’s not Biblical for women to be pastors, so that’s obviously not something God would call her to — but that’s not the discussion we’re having here). She is responsible for stewarding that pastoral gift, for being faithful in tending to the hearts of those in front of her.

I desperately want God’s input on my life — not a bad or legalistic thing. I would argue it’s part of what it means to “remain in the vine.” But I also have a deep fear that He’ll smite me if I do something I’d really like to do without being sure of what He says about it first. I feel myself wincing just at the thought of it. This is so not true about God, I know it, and yet I feel the belief coursing through my veins as if it’s been threaded through me with a needle, still too much a part of me to get completely untangled from it.

Maybe there’s another way, a better way, one that respects and values the truth that our relationship with God is not that of a master and a slave – “do this, do that”- but of bride and groom where unity and partnership bloom and come alive.

To even pose this thought makes me feel like I’ve taken a thousand steps backward in my theology and faith. I know there’s a better way! I just don’t know how to get there quite yet, but maybe it starts with conversations like the one I had with my friend.

What do you think about the language around having a personal “calling?” Has it been helpful or unhelpful for you? Let me know!