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Faith at Work: Discerning Your Calling
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Samuel 3:1-14; James 1:5,6
January 17, 2010
Last Sunday
we began a preaching series on the relationship between faith and
work. We are defining work broadly to include full-time careers,
part-time jobs, the work of being a student, home-making, and retirement. We
talked about three ways in which Christians have thought about
work. Do you remember them? Work as co-creation, work
as necessary but irksome, and work as a calling. We noted
that there is some truth in each of these approaches, but that
the last one- work as a calling- is the one we Presbyterians have
usually emphasized. The idea is that God calls each of us
to a specific type of work or task, which gives a sense of meaning
and purpose to our work. However, seeing work as a calling
presents us with a difficult problem: How do we figure out exactly
what work we’re called to do?
I once worked as a youth
director in a Pentecostal Church. One of the things that just drove me
nuts there was that often, in the midst of an ordinary conversation, someone
would say that God had told them to do a certain thing. It might be about
a job or career, a marriage decision, or a decision by the board about my salary! I
always wanted to ask them how God had told them. Had they heard a real
voice? Did they have some kind of inner intuitive feeling? Or had
someone else spoken God’s Word to them? And when I did venture to
ask, I just got puzzled and sympathetic looks in response, as if to say, “Dave,
if only you were more spiritual, then you’d understand!”
Well, my suspect spirituality
aside, the question remains: How do we discern God’s calling for
us? Not surprisingly, Christians give a variety of answers to this question. Let’s
look at a couple of them.
Some Christians say that
God calls us by direct communication. There are several biblical examples
of this. Moses saw a burning bush and heard God’s voice. God
appeared to Abram and spoke to him. Isaiah saw a vision. In the
New Testament, Saul was blinded by a light, heard a voice, and someone was sent
to speak God’s word to him concerning his calling. Our Scripture
text this morning from I Samuel 3 is another example of this. As a young
boy, Samuel hears a voice calling his name at night. He assumes it is his
guardian, Eli. And three times he goes to Eli when he hears the voice. Finally
Eli discerns that it is the Lord who is calling Samuel. The next time Samuel
hears the voice he answers, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then
God reveals a special message to Samuel.
Most of us would love
to receive this kind of direct communication from the Lord. I remember
trying to decide between two church jobs right out of college. They both
seemed to be good opportunities, but I wanted a a clear communication from God. I
said, “God, I’m willing to go to either church. Just tell me
what to do!” I longed for an unmistakable, clear, and direct calling. But,
I didn’t get it.
And that’s the problem
with an external, direct calling from the Lord. It is extremely rare! It
was even rare in biblical times, as the first verse in I Samuel 3 reminds us. “The
Word of the Lord was rare in those times…” It’s
unlikely that any of us chose our career or current job because we received a
direct communication from the Lord. If it happens, great. God can
certainly provide it for us. And if he does, it will be like those biblical
cases- clear and unmistakable. But we shouldn’t expect it; because
it is rare.
A second way of discerning
a call is much more commonly accepted among Christians today. This is the
idea of an inner call, a spiritually-intuitive approach. The idea here
is that God will speak to you through your heart, through your feelings and inner
impressions. A Sunday School class, “The Sacred Echo,” explored
this idea last Fall. The problem is that there isn’t agreement on
what constitutes a legitimate inner call. For some people, the major component
of an inner call is a sense of peace when we’ve made the right decision. For
others it is a recurring “pull” or strong desire to go in a certain
direction. At any rate, when people have felt this inner prompting, they
often feel certain that God has directed them. These folks may point to
the example of Elijah who heard that “still small voice” of God in
I Kings 19.
Christians seeking an
inner call are part of a long history, including the early church fathers in
the deserts, Roman Catholic mystics in the Middle Ages, and those involved in
more contemplative spirituality today. And, unlike external calls that
seem to be so rare, many people testify to having experienced an inner call.
One challenge with this
kind of call is that it is very susceptible to the influence of our own inner
needs and desires. How can we tell when such an inner impression comes
from our own psyche and when it is the voice of God? And by its nature,
an inner call makes it difficult for us to benefit from the wisdom of others
in the church to help us figure out if it’s valid. If someone tells
me, “Guess what, Dave? God has definitely called me to become a trapeze
artist,” and then they tell me they received this message by some kind
of inner impression, it’s pretty hard for me to help them evaluate that! It’s
just very subjective.
Still, God may indeed
choose to communicate his call or will to us by some kind of inner impression. I
have experienced something of this myself on occasion. But when we are
dealing with matters as weighty as a career choice or a particular job- a calling-
I think we need more than just an inner impression in order to consider it a
genuine call of God. That’s because an inner call can be skewed by
our own inner desires and emotions.
And that brings us to
the final way people have sought to discern a call from God- simply making the
wisest choice possible. This approach is suggested by those stewardship
parables Jesus told in which a person was entrusted with a sum of money. There
was no expectation that the master would tell them specifically how to use it. They
were to make the wisest choice possible about how what had been entrusted to
them should be used. This approach is also suggested in James 1:5. If
any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly,
and it will be given to you. The idea of this third way of discerning
a call is that God has entrusted time and certain abilities to us, and our calling
consists of making the wisest use of them we can. That’s why we ask
God for wisdom. God is still free to reveal his call to us externally or
internally, but barring that kind of call, our responsibility is to make the
wisest choices we can with the life God has entrusted to us. That’s
how I ended up deciding between those two churches. Having received no
clear external or inner call, I made the wisest choice I could.
So, practically speaking,
how would we make wise work choices in our lives? Should I stay at home
with the kids or work outside the home? What should I major in at college? Should
I look for a new job or stay with the one I’ve got? Making a wise
choice requires us to consider a number of factors, beginning with who God has
created you to be. What are your aptitudes and abilities? What are
you good at? Conversely, what do you struggle to do? If God has given
us certain abilities and gifts, then generally he will want us to make use of
them. God has also created each of us so that some things motivate us more
than others. Some people are motivated by interacting with other people. For
others it is achieving excellence or meeting goals. For still others it
is having influence on those around them or on society as a whole. What
motivates you?
In her book, Secrets
of People Who Love Their Work, Janis Harris talks about finding our “gifted
passion”- that thing or those things that we are good at that really excite
us. Counselors, tests, books, and life experiences may all be helpful in
discovering our “gifted passions,” and that is a good place to begin
to discern our call.
Darrell Green was an all-pro
cornerback for almost 20 years with the Washington Redskins, back when they were
actually a good team. He established a foundation to assist
needy kids and their families. As he anticipated his retirement from football,
this is what he said, “I’m not just a nice guy trying to help the
poor little kids. I am called. I am purposeful. I am destined. I
am living out God’s purpose in my life. Every man needs to have something
that’s worth dying for, and while football has been great, I learned a
long time ago that this is just a job, a means to an end. I had the right
perspective, I was able to be successful, but now it’s time for the real
deal.” Darrell Green’s gifted passion was not football! It’s
helping kids for Jesus Christ. His football job helped him do that.
We begin our search for
a calling by trying to discern how God has wired us up. What are our abilities
and our motivations? What is our “gifted passion?” But
for Christians, just finding a job that makes use of our gifted passion is not
enough. Good stewardship demands that we use our gifts to produce something
worthwhile! Christians don’t just work to feel fulfilled or to pursue
the big bucks. We see work as a service to society, for the common
good.
Unfortunately, some kinds
of work produce little of value to society. Some kinds of work actually
produce things that are destructive to us- like pornography or violent entertainment
or tobacco. Other businesses make their profit by preying on the helpless
or by exploiting workers or by exploiting the weaknesses of others. That’s
why I would question whether the Lord would call you to work for the lottery
or other gambling interests. Those businesses make their profits by exploiting
the false hopes of people, especially the poor. Other businesses tolerate
and encourage deception and fraud. God will not call you to use your gifts
in ways that harm or exploit others.
In summary, Christians
are to discover and use their gifted passion for something worthwhile and for
something we can do with integrity. Notice that this approach to selecting
a job or career is somewhat counter-cultural. What is the first thing most
people want to know about a particular career or job? How much money can
I make? What are the perks? How much opportunity is there for advancement? For
the Christian attempting to discern God’s call, these are secondary considerations. Of
course, we need to earn enough to support ourselves, but earning a great deal
of wealth is not a prime consideration in discerning a genuine call of God.
Frederick Buechner put
it like this, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep
gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I really like that. Your
calling is the place where your deep gladness and world’s deep hunger meet. Our
part is to discern where that intersection lies. We pray for God’s
guidance and insight in this matter. As James says, ask for wisdom and
God will give it to you. And other people can serve as a reality check
on the direction we’re heading. Find people who can really be honest
with you and won’t just support whatever you say. People who know
your strengths, abilities, weaknesses, and temperament.
Having a sense of call
to a career or a job or a certain season of life energizes us; we
know that we are part of something greater than ourselves- part of God’s
plan for the world. As we think of the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King,
Jr. this weekend, it is clear that his sense of calling to bring justice to all
the citizens of this country helped him to bear the enormous pressures and adversities
that he faced in his work. A sense of call can help us to deal with the
inevitable hard times in any job.
What is God calling you
to do at this time of your life?
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