Thanks to Pastor Erick at Joyous Exchange for alerting me to this surprisingly comprehensive collection of resources on vocation: Monergism :: Vocation & Work.

It includes hard to find but exceptional material from Steve Hein and John Pless, as well as a series of brief articles that I have written on the subject.

The links includes treatments and applications of the doctrine of vocation from both Lutheran and Reformed perspectives. Sample some of both. What are the differences?

Remember the part of the doctrine of vocation that stresses how God is present in vocation. That means that when people serve us, in the course of everyday life and everyday economics, God is serving us through them. We should be grateful to those–in farms and factories and stores and in the family kitchen–who make our Thanksgiving feast. And we should be grateful to God who is providing for us through them and for giving them to us. And God looms behind all of the other people and institutions that bless us.

Over at Four-and-Twenty Blackbirds is taking place an illuminating discussion of vocations. vocation. (Thanks to Neb for alerting me to this in his comment to our short break from politics.) A pastor asks for help in filling his different callings as pastor, father, and husband, feeling that they are pulling him in different ways and that he is not fulfilling his various vocations as he should.

Pastor Peter Bender jumps in:

Let me say this, first, to you: You are a free man in Christ! There is no condemnation for you, for you are in Christ Jesus and His righteousness covers all your sin and inadequacies. Furthermore, you were called to be a husband and a father by the grace of God and not because of any merit or worthiness on your part. Therefore, it is going to be God’s free grace in Christ alone that sustains you. You have also been called and ordained to the Office of the Holy Ministry by grace alone and not because of your talents, abilities, or merits and it is the grace of God in Christ that shall sustain you in that calling or you won’t be sustained at all.

When we speak of our vocation as Christians we almost always look at our calling in terms of the Law–What I am supposed to do, my responsibilities and obligations. This is NOT the foundation of our vocation. Vocation is first and foremost a reference to the call of the Gospel and how each of us is called to live by faith in the grace of God in Christ wherever He has placed us in this world. This means that the strength of our vocation is in the call to live by faith in the Gospel, rather than a call to live by faith in the Law or in how well I am living up to the “obligations and responsibilities” of my office.

The truth is, we all fall short daily. Our joy, comfort, strength to persevere, and freedom come from the Gospel alone and never from the Law or our own accomplishments. What this means, practically, for you is that if your congregation supports you in love during this difficult time (because of their faith in the Gospel I might add), God be praised! Serve, therefore, as you are able with no pangs of conscience. And, if your wife, also, supports how you are able to tend the flock, watch over the children, and see to her needs while she lays pregnant in Fort Wayne (something that she, too, is able to do because she believes the Gospel), then God be praised! Serve your wife and family as you are able.

The bottom line is this: the Gospel sets us free to do what we can within our vocation and to commend the rest to God. Indeed, we commend it all to God in Christ since He is the one who has placed us into our respective offices in the first place. Vocation is chiefly about where God has called us to live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself to us. For your comfort and encouragement I urge you to reread Luther’s, “The Freedom of a Christian.” I don’t think we can reread that little tract enough. Finally, give thanks to God that He gives you the opportunity to live by faith in His grace in the midst of seemingly unbearable circumstances. When you get home at the end of a day, or return in the evening after visiting your wife who is pregnant with three little babies that you don’t deserve, drink a beer and give thanks to God for His mercy and grace by which you stand righteous and by which you lack nothing.

Then Pastor William Cwirla adds something:

I would add the following thought. Vocation is the offering of our bodies in the form of our work, worship, and play as a spiritual sacrifice to God, holy and acceptable through His mercies which are in Christ Jesus (Rom 12:1-2). We are called to serve our neighbor in a variety of capacities, whether husband, father, pastor, son, citizen, etc. What we are given to do at any particular moment, and whom we are given to serve at that moment, is our calling. And it will be most fulfilled as we give that task, that person, our undivided attention and energy. Everything else can wait, trusting that the Lord will provide.

So when you are with your family, at that moment, forget about your congregation. They are in the Lord’s hands, and you are not their Savior. When you are working to provide for your family, you are doing your vocation as husband and father; put everything else out of your mind. The Lord will take care of the rest. When you are visiting a shut-in or preparing a sermon, put everything else out of your mind and enjoy the moment for the blessing that it is.

One of the tricks the devil plays with us is guilting us into thinking we should be doing something else. I should be doing this, I should be reading that, I should be visiting so and so. Fie on that! Don’t let the devil rob you of the joy of the task at hand.

Read the whole discussion, which is full of wisdom and good counsel to all of us.

Thanks to Mollie Z. Hemingway at Get Religion for alerting us to this moving story about Thomas S. Vander Woude, who died to save the life of his son:

When Joseph, 20, who has Down syndrome, fell into a septic tank Monday in his back yard, Vander Woude jumped in after him. He saved him. And he died where he spent so much time living: at his son’s side.

“That’s how he lived,” Vander Woude’s daughter-in-law and neighbor, Maryan Vander Woude, said yesterday. “He lived sacrificing his life, everything, for his family.”

Vander Woude, 66, had gone to Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Gainesville on Monday, just as he did every day, and then worked in the yard with Joseph, the youngest of his seven sons, affectionately known as Josie. Joseph apparently fell through a piece of metal that covered a 2-by-2-foot opening in the septic tank, according to Prince William County police and family members.

Vander Woude rushed to the tank; a workman at the house saw what was happening and told Vander Woude’s wife, Mary Ellen, police said. They called 911 about 12 p.m. and tried to help the father and son in the meantime.

At some point, Vander Woude jumped in the tank, submerging himself in sewage so he could push his son up from below and keep his head above the muck, while Joseph’s mom and the workman pulled from above.

When rescue workers arrived, they pulled the two out, police said. Vander Woude, who had been in the tank for 15 to 20 minutes, was unconscious. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, and he was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. . . .

Vander Woude was a pilot in Vietnam, a daughter-in-law said. After the war, he worked as a commercial airline pilot and in the early 1980s moved his family to Prince William from Georgia. In the years to come, he would wear many hats: farmer, athletic director, volunteer coach, parishioner, handy neighbor, grandfather of 24, husband for 43 years. . . .

But loved ones said his favorite job was the one he did last: being a good dad.

“They always considered Joseph a wonderful blessing to the family,” said Francis Peffley, pastor at Holy Trinity, where Vander Woude served as a sacristan and also trained altar servers. “His whole life was spent serving people and sacrificing himself. . . . He gave the ultimate sacrifice. . . . Giving his life to save his son.”