{"id":2663,"date":"2019-08-01T20:31:36","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T02:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/?p=2663"},"modified":"2019-08-01T20:31:36","modified_gmt":"2019-08-02T02:31:36","slug":"7-ways-to-get-clear-about-vocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2019\/08\/7-ways-to-get-clear-about-vocation\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Ways to Get Clear about Vocation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\"\"<\/a>A good conversation with a friend brought up the topic of vocation, and I think that we have it all wrong.\u00a0 That\u2019s a problem because \u2014 if you thought the church was good at anything \u2014 you would have thought that helping people sort out the call of God in their lives would have been on the shortlist.<\/h6>\n
But here we are.\u00a0 People are still deeply befuddled about it.\u00a0 Some people believe that God has a list and the challenge is to guess what is on the list.\u00a0 Some people think that clergy are the only ones with \u201ca call\u201d and laypeople are on their own, to make as much money as possible doing anything that is legal.\u00a0 The church is without structures to help anyone on a regular basis, apart from the clergy, and they are pretty much on their own after ordination.\u00a0 And a lot of people have given up trying to guess what it is that God wants from them.<\/h6>\n
So, what\u2019s wrong with our thinking about vocation?<\/h6>\n
One,<\/em> we have over-identified vocation with employment.\u00a0 To be sure, our work-worlds are an important laboratory for sorting through the question of who we are.\u00a0 Our creative impulses and work can be a great place to sort out who we are. \u00a0BUT \u2013 and it\u2019s a big BUT \u2014 that\u2019s not always the case.<\/h6>\n
There are lengthy portions of our lives devoted to education and preparation.\u00a0 We all eventually retire.\u00a0 And our work can be interrupted by layoffs, illness and a variety of other factors.\u00a0 If employment equals vocation, then that means a lot of our lives has nothing to do with the calling of God.<\/h6>\n
To make matters more complicated: Some of us never get to pursue the question of who we are very deeply at work.\u00a0 Sometimes work is all about a paycheck, about providing for our families, about paying bills.\u00a0 Our work-world aspirations can be frustrated by geography, a lack of financial opportunities, economic change, technological transformations, a hostile boss, and a host of other factors.<\/h6>\n
There is also much more to our lives than the work that we do.\u00a0 We are grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers, spouses, friends, and mentors \u2013 to name a few common activities that give definition to our lives.\u00a0 We find and express ourselves in the hobbies that we pursue and the recreation in which we engage.<\/h6>\n
Two, <\/em>we have over-identified vocation with work in and for the church.\u00a0 Far too often seminarians begin their studies, claiming that \u2013 at long last \u2013 they are doing the work that God has called them to do.\u00a0 The natural inference is that what they were doing before they came to seminary <\/em>did not have anything to do with God\u2019s calling on their lives.<\/h6>\n
The same inference is played out in the ordination process in most churches.\u00a0 If a board or commission on ministry concludes that you are not cut for ordained ministry, then you are on your own.\u00a0 \u00a0They may promise to pray for you, but that\u2019s it.\u00a0 And, if you are not considering ordination, then you have nowhere at all to go.<\/h6>\n
Three, <\/em>we have glamorized and privatized the adventure of vocation.\u00a0 He is a competent theologian and an exceptional writer, but Frederick Buechner\u2019s oft-cited observation has put our thinking about vocation on the wrong track.\u00a0 God\u2019s calling on our lives is not<\/em> \u201cthe place where your deep gladness and the world\u2019s deep hunger meet.\u201d<\/h6>\n
One, apart from the kind of gladness that arises from aligning ourselves with the will of God, gladness, on the whole, is transitory.\u00a0 Think Moses in the wilderness with really unhappy traveling companions, think Jonah coming to grips with God\u2019s insistence that the covenant with Israel embraces Gentiles, think Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane or Paul sitting in prison.<\/h6>\n
Two, what the world hungers for and what it truly needs are two different things.\u00a0 Ask anyone who has ever attempted to up-end the lives of comfy suburbanites with the notion that being a part of the body of Christ might involve something more than getting your ticket punched on Sunday.<\/h6>\n
And, three, as I noted above \u2013 sometimes those two things never meet.\u00a0 It is easy for privileged middle and upper class Americans armed with a college education to wax eloquent about finding their \u201cdeep gladness,\u201d but for a lot of people in this world life is about getting from tonight to tomorrow morning and they fall face down into bed \u2013 if they have one \u2013 unable to speculate on the luxury of finding gladness.<\/h6>\n
So, how should we be thinking about vocation?<\/h6>\n
One, vocation is not about what we are doing, but about who we are becoming before God.\u00a0 And that happens every \u2013 single \u2013 day, in the good and the bad, in the places that are easy and the places that are hard, in the choices you make and the choices that are forced on you.\u00a0 There are times when all we may be able to control is how we respond, but in responding we give yourselves to the things of God or we give yourself to darkness.\u00a0 And in so doing, our choices become a life.<\/h6>\n
Two, the growing edge of that adventure may be anywhere in our lives: In the relationships we are building or in the care that we extend to those who are in our circle of care.\u00a0 It may be in struggling with things that are hard and messy.\u00a0 It may lie in transcending our own failings and shortcomings or the hatred of others.<\/h6>\n
Three, vocation is also found in the commonplace.\u00a0 As we respond to the daily demands of life, we can be open to God\u2019s call on our lives, even if the activity is mundane, unpleasant, obligatory, or simply our duty in the moment.<\/h6>\n
Four, vocation can be discovered by attending to the way in which we respond to those commonplace demands or by attending to the way in which we behave toward others and the way in which we open ourselves to God\u2019s work in and through us.<\/h6>\n
Five, that can also happen by asking ourselves, \u201cIs the kind of person I am becoming the kind of person who draws others to God and into community with those around me?\u201d<\/h6>\n
Six, for that reason, we also need to remember that vocation is not something that lies in the future.\u00a0 It lies in the here and now.<\/h6>\n
Seven, we also need to remember that the call of God on our lives is not a solitary enterprise.\u00a0 It is shaped by the way in which we treat one another.\u00a0 You and I have the capacity to make that easier or harder for those around us.\u00a0 The way in which we act toward one another can nourish hope in others and promote that journey.\u00a0 We can also crush one another and frustrate that journey.<\/h6>\n
There is more, but this much is clear: Our vocation is about the restoration of the image of God in each of us, and the specific paths we take are less important than the way in which those paths promote or frustrate that restoration.<\/h6>\n
So, church, it is time to do the work we were given.\u00a0 In-corporation into the body of Christ is all about the restoration of the divine image in us, and helping people make that calling on our lives a reality.\u00a0 If that conversation is missing from our sermons and efforts at formation \u2014 if people think it\u2019s all about the clergy \u2013 or people are left on their own to sort that out, then we have failed.\u00a0 In an environment in which an increasing number of people are spiritual but not religious, because they can\u2019t see what going to church has to do with their lives, we need to do better.<\/h6>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good conversation with a friend brought up the topic of vocation, and I think that we have it all wrong.\u00a0 That\u2019s a problem because \u2014 if you thought the church was good at anything \u2014 you would have thought that helping people sort out the call of God in their lives would have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2864,2870,2867,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-call","category-call-of-god","category-calling","category-vocation"],"yoast_head":"\n7 Ways to Get Clear about Vocation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A good conversation with a friend brought up the topic of vocation, and I think that we have it all wrong.\u00a0 That\u2019s a problem because -- if you thought the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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