Does God Call People to Their Jobs?

When Christians ask about “calling” or vocation, we usually mean, “Is God calling me to a specific job or profession?” This is a significant question. The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over his/her lifetime. Of course we long to assign meaning and purpose to those hours. And since our work matters to God, it makes sense to ask what work he wants us to do. 

In the Bible, God does indeed call people—some people, at least—to specific work. Although scripture seldom actually uses the word “call” to describe God’s guidance to particular jobs or tasks, these occurrences in the Bible do correspond to what we usually mean by a vocational “calling.” So, as a preliminary answer, we can say “yes,” God does lead people to particular work.

However, the concept of calling is not limited to work. God calls people to become united with him in every aspect of life. This can only occur as a response to Christ’s call to follow him. The calling to follow Christ lies at the root of every other calling. Whatever your job may be, God is much more concerned that you come under the saving grace of Christ and participate in his work of creation and redemption. The ultimate image of calling in the Bible is the calling to follow Jesus.

(It is important to note that we shouldn’t confuse a calling to follow Christ with a calling to become a professional church worker. People in every walk of life are called to follow Christ with equal depth and commitment.)

Getting us into the right job or career is not God’s highest concern, but that doesn’t mean it’s of no concern. In fact, the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit is to guide and empower people for the life and work to which God leads them.

If by “calling,” we mean a direct, unmistakable command from God to take up a particular task, job, or profession, then calling is very rare in the Bible.—God called Noah to build the ark. He called Moses and Aaron to their tasks (Exodus 3:4, 28:1). He called prophets such as Samuel (1 Samuel 3:10), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-5), Amos (Amos 7:15) and others. He called Abram and Sarah and a few others to undertake journeys or to relocate (which might be taken as a kind of workplace calling). He placed people in political leadership, including Joseph, Gideon, Saul, David and David’s descendants. God chose Bezalel and Oholiab as chief craftsmen for the tabernacle (Exodus 31:1-6). Jesus called the apostles and some other of his disciples (e.g., Mark 3:14-19), and the Holy Spirit called Barnabas and Saul to be missionaries (Acts 13:2).—The word “call” is not always used, but the unmistakable direction of God for a particular person to do a particular job is clear in these cases. No more than a hundred or so people were called by God in this way. 

This suggests that a direct calling from God to particular work might also be rare today. (If you’ve received a calling in this way, you don’t need guidance from an article like this one, except perhaps for the affirmation that, yes, this type of calling does occur in the Bible.) We will not discuss direct, unmistakable, personal calling further in this series. Instead, next week, we will focus on how God guides people to their work through less dramatic means.

This excerpt was taken from our free eBook, Calling: a Biblical Perspective.