Paul had forged through life without thinking much about it. He just went along with the routine, following the expectations of the culture and crowd. Yet along that route, somewhere in his thirties, Paul found that the path had splintered so badly in so many directions that it no longer really offered any way forward or any clear sense of direction. Maybe the culture had changed and the crowd had disintegrated. Or maybe expectations disappeared when one reached one’s thirties. Paul didn’t really know. All Paul knew was that he was directionless and rudderless. He had no idea what he was doing, what he was supposed to do, or if his life had any purpose. And Paul knew he’d better figure out his purpose quickly, or his life would be over and wasted.
Purpose
Having a sense of purpose in one’s life can be critical to maintaining one’s enthusiasm, effort, and direction. Surfing along with the crowd can be fine for a time. But sometimes the crowd heads in the wrong direction. And sometimes the crowd heads in a fine direction but not one cut out for you. When you find yourself doing things that everyone seems to do, and you discover that you’re doing them just because you see everyone else doing them, that may be the moment you first think about what you really should do. What you should do may not be what everyone else does or seems to be doing. Tradition, custom, and convention can be powerful and reliable guides. But they can also be powerfully misleading in any individual case. Crowds, customs, and traditions do not definitively determine one’s individual purpose in life, or we’d all be doing similar things despite our individual gifts, opportunities, responsibilities, experiences, resources, and other differences.
Calling
The faithful sometimes call their individual sense of purpose their calling. A calling is an end that beckons precisely because it is an end, suggesting that it has something of inherent value in it for you. A calling speaks to you in an alluring manner, as if you were made for one another. The faithful may speak specifically of God calling them to their purpose, such as a pastor acknowledging that God called him to the ministry. Pastors and priests receive their call from God. Yet the faithful may also acknowledge a call to other endeavors, whether crediting God for the call, crediting the endeavor itself for the call, or leaving the caller ambiguous. A physician, for instance, might claim a call to a healing profession, an architect or engineer a call to build things, and a mother of three children a call to pour her life into raising Christ-filled kids. A recreationalist might claim a calling to enjoy the great outdoors in whatever adventure, sport, or activity facilitated it. Artists, musicians, composers, herdsmen, astronauts, fathers, mothers, and others may sense their call as such, with callings as various as the opportunities that present themselves.
Process
Some of us perceive our calling in a specific moment, whether a word from a family member or friend, suggestion by a mentor, insight from a teacher, or even a dream or vision in the night. On the other hand, discerning your calling or purpose in life may involve a process more than a singular moment of great clarity. You may hear many suggestions, while trying several of them on for size. You may gradually work your way into a position where you feel skilled, useful, valued, effective, and authoritative, and only then realize that you’ve found your calling. Or you may find yourself in a position where you feel unskilled, overlooked, ineffective, and ignored, but still perceive that your difficult position is yours, precisely where God wants you, because your perfect moment of extravagant grace is yet to come. Stories abound of hidden geniuses dwelling in obscurity for what seemed a lifetime, only to have their historic success break and shine through, even if the world only learned of it decades later. Faith invites you to trust God’s process for you. Faith says to keep trusting that God has your calling in hand and will reveal it to you in the right way and at the right moment.
Meaning
Depending on how you construe it, your calling might be slightly narrower than your broader purpose in life. Some see callings as related to vocations, endeavors, or activities, while a purpose in life may be more existential, having more to do with the meaning of life. The answer to whether life has broad meaning and purpose, beyond an individual’s specific calling, depends on whom you ask. To the materialist, life has only material purposes, which would mean no living, breathing, thinking purpose. The astrophysicists may see in us only stardust, consigned to return to the stars. To them, our meaning or purpose may be just tough luck in a vast nothingness of a few billion galaxies, each eventually consumed in their own black holes. Evolutionists may see in us only genes intent on selfishly propagating. To them, our purpose may be nothing more than survival of the fittest. The relativists, constructivists, and atheists may see in us only dreamers, each living out our own dream, with none more true, worthwhile, or real than another.
Faithful
The faithful would answer differently that every life has a calling and every life meaning and a purpose. We find purpose in our pursuit of Christ’s call and God’s heart. Our purpose is to honor the God who made us in order to receive and return his love, communing with his Son as Father and Son commune in the Spirit. In accepting our purpose, we are not choosing among multiple equally meaningful or meaningless ends. We are not seeing the world foolishly or abstractly. We are instead seeing the world as God made it and as it accounts for itself, revealed in startling fashion in the life of his Son. To constitute a calling and purpose, and to lend life its greatest meaning, the thing must not only beckon us but also be that for which we yearn. It should fulfill, excite, and inspire us, as does the incomparable fulfillment of the world’s yearning in the life of Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave up his only Son so that all who believed in him would have his eternal life.
Achievable
Callings should also be achievable, not too far beyond our reach. In Jesus Christ, God has given us a more-than-reachable pursuit and purpose in life. In Christ, God gives us the free gift of life’s pursuit and purpose. The reach of Christ is not beyond any of us. You don’t have to be rich, you don’t have to be powerful, and you don’t have to be wise. Indeed, you need only give up your worldly riches, power, purpose, and meaning for the greater heavenly riches, power, purpose, and meaning in Jesus Christ. You may even be better off poor and humble, to reach for and embrace Jesus Christ. Christ’s call has saved murderers, adulterers, prostitutes, prisoners, robbers, and thieves. Christ’s call has reached swindlers, scammers, and schemers. All that anyone needs to pursue Christ’s call is confession of a need and desire for the passionate love of Jesus Christ. God’s ultimate call is no more nor less than that, to accept his Son and receive heaven in return as your reward.
Individual
Your calling and purpose, though, will still look different for you than for anyone else. When you pursue the holy God, you do so as he made you and not as he made anyone else. You are unique in character and personality. You are also unique in position and circumstance. You are also unique in experience and the insight, skill, and judgment you’ve honed through that experience. God calls each of us to our own place in the world. His Son also prepares for each of us our own place in heaven. Some of us will thus be bakers, others candlestick-makers, some doctors, others lawyers, and still others will be mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. All of us, though, will be sons and daughters, whom the Father fills with his love. He also calls us all to be preachers and teachers of his glorious good news. Pursue your individual calling in the place God put you. Fill your heart with his love to draw others along with you on the journey into God’s kingdom.
Circumstances
To discern your specific calling, look around you at your circumstances. A calling is often at hand, not to a distant land. Your circumstances may have laid your calling out before you. God tells us volumes through our circumstances, for everything is within his reach, and every affair of the faithful is in his hand. If you haven’t been faithful, then your circumstances may be especially chaotic and confused, with little sense of a pathway or direction. Then commit yourself to faith. Trust in God. Stop following the crowd. Stop following only your own fleshly desires. As soon as you turn even slightly toward him, he will point out your path. If you just knock, he will open the door. Even if your circumstances are hard, God will reveal your calling within that hardship, helping you draw insight, skill, and judgment from it that you would never otherwise have had. When you turn to faith, your circumstances will no longer look so confused but will begin to take shape in your calling’s form.
Discoverable
Your specific calling is still discoverable, even if you don’t discern it from your circumstances. If you don’t discern your calling in your circumstances, then seek your calling through prayer. Ask God, and then watch for God’s guidance. Don’t just listen for a shout or whisper. Also watch for a door or a sign. If you don’t discern your calling in prayer, then turn your attention to corporate worship glorifying God. You may discern your calling in a flash of worshipful joy. If you don’t discern your calling in worship, then turn your attention to scripture study, seeking the inspiration of God’s word, which has continual power to point and clarify. If you don’t discern your calling through scripture study, then turn your attention to service to others. God may reveal in your service how he is calling, blessing, leading, and healing others, who may have their own word for you about your calling. Your calling may be in your own home, your own workplace, or your own community, or on distant shores. Your calling may be the person next to you whose life and future you hold or the thing right now in your hand. Or your calling may be someone you’ve never met or something you’ve never encountered, only seen in a vision or dream.
Diligence
Faith doesn’t give up on its calling. Keep searching for your calling. But also keep finding your calling in what appears before you to do today. Your calling isn’t meant to loosen your resolve and discipline, and turn you away from what God places in front of you and in your hands. Your calling isn’t meant to give you a dreamy outlook of no use to anyone but the devil. Instead, diligently love and serve others, while sharing with others the good news of God’s saving grace. Draw them closer to God through your own love of Christ. Life with purpose is a precious thing, while life without purpose is an enormous loss. Never give up pursuing your call. God gives a rich call for every life. The call is at once the same for each of us, to joyfully embrace God’s saving grace, while also unique for each of us, your own journey God crafted to bless you even before you were born.
Reflection
Do you have a strong or weak sense of purpose? Rate your sense of purpose on a scale of one to ten. Does your sense of purpose vary with where you are, whom you’re with, and what you’re doing? If so, what does that variation tell you? When have you discerned a strong and clear calling to a certain endeavor or activity? What form did the calling take? Have you responded adequately to that calling? Do you need to pick up that calling again to pursue it? Do you have a sense of the calling that you are currently pursuing? Rehearse and refine what you would answer if a close friend asked you to share both your general sense of purpose and of your particular calling fulfilling that purpose. Ask a friend to share their purpose and calling. If you need a stronger and clearer sense of your calling, commit for a season to faithfully pursue answers through worship, scripture study, service, and prayer. Assess where that commitment is leading you, while enjoying the process.
Key Points
None are aimless; we each have a purpose in life to pursue and fulfill.
Your purpose expresses itself through a calling beckoning you.
Discerning your calling may be instant or through a lengthy process.
Your purpose in life lends your life rich hope and meaning.
Faithfulness is key to discerning and pursuing your purpose.
Your purpose is achievable and within your reach, not impossible.
Your purpose you may share, but your calling is unique to you.
Your calling may reveal itself in your circumstances in front of you.
Your calling may instead reveal itself in worship, study, and prayer.
Your calling is discoverable with perseverance and diligence.