Revisiting Eight Questions About Vocation

The final part in a series on vocation

In the second post on vocation, I asked eight questions about the view that appears prevalent in the Western Church. In the present post, I return to these questions to propose some provisional answers as a way of concluding this series.  

1. Does everyone have a vocation?

I have suggested there are at least three distinct senses of vocation, including God’s command, God’s invitation, and a sense of fitting response to our context. Everyone has a vocation in the first sense, since as human beings we are told in Genesis to fill the earth and steward it.

There is also a universal human call to repentance and faith in Jesus. I am not sure whether this is best thought of as a command or an invitation. An argument could be made that it is the latter. Consider, for instance, Jesus’ interaction with the rich young ruler and his invitation to that man to give away his wealth and follow him. This is characteristic of Jesus’ mode of interaction with others — it is invitational. 

What about the third sense? Here we use “vocation” to talk about feeling a deep congruence between who we are and the particular way we are working/living/contributing in the context where we find ourselves. Potentially, everyone has a vocation like this, too, since there will be for each of us work that feels more or less fitting given our personalities, talents, etc. This is true in potential only, however, since our circumstances may prevent us from asking ourselves questions about fit or having the freedom to pursue it.   

2. Does each of us have an individual vocation?

This question is a particularly important one. My sense is that the typical way of answering it contributes to a lot of anxiety and frustration. 

What’s the typical way? In the contemporary view, each of us is usually understood to have a particular call from God. This is distinct from a universal call, like that in Genesis 2. It is, instead, some kind of work or mission assigned on an individual level. The scriptural models here are people like Paul and David, picked out by God and sent. Deploying the three-fold understanding of vocation given above, this view envisions each of us having an individualized type-one calling: a specific command from God to do a particular work. 

The anxiety and frustration come when we feel unable to discover what this specific call is. Looking at scripture, such a call is pretty rare. There is, therefore, good reason to doubt that everyone has one. The contemporary understanding of vocation encourages individuals to figure out what God is uniquely calling them to do — when God may not actually be calling them in that way. Moreover, the scripture evidence suggests one doesn’t need to go searching for this kind of call. When God is calling you, you’ll know it.

In contrast, a type three vocation, a sense of congruence between one’s work and one’s self, is by its nature individualized and, as suggested above, potentially universal. People still often experience anxiety looking for this place where “my greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need,” in part due to confusion about how type one and type three callings are distinct. A type one calling is singular and comes in the form of a command, such that failure to carry it out is disobedience. In contrast, there will usually be a variety of ways to live out a type-three calling, and living in this way is not a command to be obeyed but a privilege to be enjoyed.

3. Need one’s vocation be life-centering?

Apart from this potential confusion, we can still feel an undue sense of pressure connected with vocation because of a belief that it is crucial to be living in a way that is, we might say, vocationally fulfilling. Consider again Gordon Smith’s assertion, quoted in an earlier post:

“Indeed, we will only be happy—we will only flourish in the way that was intended when God created us—when we are doing good work. The goal of life is not less work but to know and embrace the good work to which we are called.”

“Only be happy” — if that’s true, the stakes are incredibly high. This is the idea I was trying to capture by saying the contemporary view thinks of vocation as life-centering. It is of central importance in life to clarify and live into one’s calling and worth prioritizing over other considerations. 

Again, the three types of vocation help clarify things. This attitude is appropriate for a type one calling. If you’re Moses and God calls you from the bush to lead his people out of Egypt, everything else in your life takes a back seat to your faithful response to that call. 

For types two and three, however, things appear quite different. If, for instance, I sense God inviting me to serve the immigrant community, I need to carefully weigh my existing responsibilities, capacity, and so forth as I discern how I might respond. Likewise, my pursuit of work I find fulfilling needs to be conducted within boundaries established by other important considerations, like family obligations and financial needs. In our time, it is easy for pursuit of a type three vocation to slip into an idolatrous quest for self-fulfillment.

4. Is vocation necessarily about my work?

Part of our call as humans is to love and enjoy fellowship with God. Another part is to love and enjoy fellowship with other people. Though our work is not irrelevant to these things, our loving God and others extends well beyond it. Jesus said the first and greatest command was to love God. That means we can successfully pursue our most important calling even in seasons of life when we are unable to carry our share of the world’s labors. 

5. Is vocation always singular and enduring?

The contemporary view seems to assume each person has one vocation and that this vocation persists throughout one’s lifetime. It isn’t clear that either of these assumptions is correct. 

Vocations are sometimes limited because they concern the accomplishment of a particular task. The calling of judges in the book by that name often fits this pattern. They were summoned by God to deliver Israel from an enemy and finished when this job was done. 

Type two and three vocations can surely shift with time. In one season, perhaps you sense the invitation to pour your heart into being a mother; In another, you discern a call to serve as a teacher. Our context is constantly changing and we change, too. It is possible for our attachment to past congruence to get in the way of responding appropriately to our present circumstances. 

6. Is a person’s vocation necessarily rooted in who that person is?

This is clearly not the case with type one callings. Moses was surprised by God summoning him to speak to pharaoh because he wasn’t a gifted speaker. This role wasn’t, perhaps, a “natural fit.” In carrying out his purposes, God often selects individuals who appear from the outside as surprising choices.

On the other end of the spectrum, self-understanding is part of how we discern type three vocation. Still, our sense of the best way to respond to our circumstances may sometimes have much more to do with our opportunities and responsibilities than with a match between who we are and the work we feel we must give ourselves to. 

7. How should vocation be discerned?

It would be absurd to attempt a thorough answer to this question here. The key point this series has tried to clarify, however, is that the method of discernment varies with the type of vocation. 

When you read books about calling, you’ll encounter recommendations to, for instance, reflect on past experiences, consult your desires, and query your friends about what they see in you. All of this makes great sense when trying to clarify a type three sense of vocation and perhaps a type two as well. 

It makes much less sense with a type one. One of the hallmarks of that type of calling seems to be its clear and compelling nature. Those who receive such calls don’t struggle to discern, typically; If they struggle, it is only over whether to obey.  

8. Do we have the responsibility to discover and live into our vocations?

My view is that we could benefit from taking a much more relaxed approach to the whole matter of calling. Especially for young people, the topic has become fraught with anxiety and pressure, as we labor under the notions that everyone has a unique calling and that we can only be happy if we discover and live it out. As I suggested in the second post, this picture seems to come more from our culture than scripture. 

It reminds me of what Jesus said about the sabbath — that it was made for man, and not man for it. In other words, the sabbath was designed to be a gift, not a burden. Similarly, God’s calling, whether understood as his command, his invitation, or his placing us in a particular setting, is meant to be a gift. There is great joy in having the sense of partnering with God’s work in the world in response to his initiative. 

Yet great frustration is possible when we try to force this to happen according to our own picture of how it should work. God may not summon you from a burning bush. He may not, as in the story I related of Hannah Hurnard, give you a clear invitation that sets the course of your life. He may not open the way for you to pursue the kind of work you find uniquely fulfilling. 

But if we yield ourselves to our universal and primary callings, to love God, steward creation, and follow Christ, we will surely find life in that — often more than we could have asked or imagined. If God breaks into our story in more dramatic and particular ways, that’s a grace. When he does so, however, let him find us busy about what is in front of us and content to play a small role in his big story, sharing patiently, as often we must, the common burden of longings that will only find their fulfillment in the age to come.

This is part six in a series on vocation. In case you’re picking up the thread in the middle, here are the previous posts:

• Making Sense of Vocation

• Eight Questions About Vocation

• Does Everyone Have a Vocation?

• Does Everyone Have a Specific Calling?  

• Vocational Frustration