You’re in your mid-20s, thinking you would have things figured out post-college. yet you’re still clueless? You compare your life and FOMO kicked in? Aka you’re in a quarter-life crisis. So you search for your calling, but what is this calling?
We throw around the word “calling” so much, its meaning is blurred. We turn calling into this burden to find the “right” one or else God is not glorified. At best we turn anxious, at worst we are crippled to make any decisions.
Does calling means making it to a certain position? Is calling only found through the great search for the hidden pearl? Can calling be missed?
Let me share what calling is not and what it can look like:
Calling is not your job. You can retire off your job but you can’t retire out of your calling.
Calling is not unchanging. The mission might be the same but calling can have different fronts.
Calling is not always grandiose and world-changing. Calling can be small and faithfully mundane.
Calling is not about you. It is about blessing others and serving God.
There is a general calling for all Christians: to have a relationship with God and to love people. However, we wrestle to know our specific calling. These are truths we can remember in our confusion:
God gives freedom
Many a cripple to make the wrong steps in choosing a career or certain decisions. We seek to honor God in the decision-making process, we commit our plans to Him, and where He doesn’t clear directives, He gives us the freedom to choose God-honoring & spiritually useful decisions. God’s freedom should give us relief and God’s wisdom should give us confidence that we can make decisions pleasing to Him.
When we have chosen what is moral and wise, we must trust our sovereign God to work all the details together for good.
People talk about “being led by the Spirit” to their calling. In the Bible, being led by the Spirit equals to living according to the Spirit: “Sons of God are those led by the Holy Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh and accomplish the moral will of God” (Rom 8:14). The more we behold Christ, the more our daily decisions are shaped by the person of Christ revealed in Scripture. His moral will does not determine every decision but influences our decision.
2. God gives wisdom
We fulfill the intention of creation by exercising this call of freedom of choice. But God does not leave us alone with our faulty and frail wisdom. God grants us three gifts that empower us to choose well: The Scripture, community of faith, and the Spirit. God also grants wisdom to those with certain spiritual character:
Reverence of God (Prov.9:10) and uprightness (Prov.2:7)
Humility (Prov.11:2) and Teachableness (Prov.9:9)
Diligence (Prov.2:4)
The believer’s task is to seek to know God better; God’s task is to guide. Thus in our calling paralysis, our question is not “Which should I choose?” but “In what ways/state am I best to serve the Lord?”
3. God speaks
His voice depends upon the condition of your heart. We hear God only when we cultivate the capacity to be still. Silence gives Christ space in our lives. In silence, we examine one’s motive, clarify one’s commitment to Christ and weight the pros-and cons of one’s decision.
God leads one step at a time. So often stymied in our decision because we ask God more than God will reveal us, we trust God for this day and this chapter of our lives.
SEEK GOD, KNOW HIM, AND OBEY WHAT YOU KNOW TO BE TRUE.
God is perfectly able to make things clear. For each of our decisions, if we are desiring to do His will, reading His word, living in step with His spirit, and communing with His people, we will be in a better place to know which to choose.
The life of faith means living with uncertainty even in the midst of doing God’s will.
And you can find rest then. That you can not miss your calling when you pursue Him. He will be your guide. I can be a testament that Jesus reveals at just the right time, the right place, with the right people.
When you’re not there yet.
Be patient in the waiting.
Active in the seeking.
Obedient in the revealing.
x,
Tam
