Calling, Purpose, Mission
I love the subject of calling, or purpose, or mission. It’s something I care about personally, as well as something that comes up with my clients all the time. People say to me, “My calling is to be a wife or a mother,” or “My job is my calling.” However, calling is bigger than a role or a career. Calling can be incorporated into those things, surely, but it is not defined by them or limited by them.
We were each born with certain gifts, and a certain personality or disposition to aid in the dispensation or sharing of those gifts. Our gifts meet a need in the world and our calling can be found at that point of intersection. I have found that people get caught up in the creation of calling through roles or career and it actually inhibits them. A helpful way to consider calling is by thinking of people as undercover agents. I know someone who is a healer and an encourager by calling, and he happens to work as an undercover agent as a hair stylist right now. Someone else who has a calling as a teacher is an undercover agent as a real estate agent, teaching people how to navigate big change in their lives. Another person’s calling and healing ministry is expressed through her law practice. An undercover agent fulfills the job responsibilities of their career, but they bring to it a higher purpose and deeper gifting. The job becomes the way God puts people in their path, but the calling is what enables them to really see and connect and minister to the people there.
Seasons of Life
Calling can be expressed differently in different seasons of life. How you express your calling can look very different when you are young and single, when you are married and raising a family, and when you have an empty nest. Yet, at the core of calling regardless of the season or mode of expression you will see the same inherent gifting. Often your calling ties back to the thing you always loved to do, or the thing you did that made you lose track of time when you were a kid. Or maybe it’s the thing your friends really love about you, or the gift or trait they compliment you about. It may be something that would be utterly exhausting or depleting to someone else, yet somehow you feel replenished or invigorated by it. Living in our calling is like plugging into an electrical socket rather than being battery powered, we are taking our energy directly from the Source. We feel guided, liberated, inspired, creative, peaceful, aligned. God did not create us for a calling that we cannot fulfill. In fact, we are our happiest, most productive, and healthiest version of ourselves when we are aligned with our calling.
I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Ephesians 4:1
