Calling

The number one mistake young adults can make in their careers is to settle for anything less than calling.

Our process of seeking calling is a simple one. We go to the best college we can get into, pick a major that most interests us, marry the person we feel the most strongly about, pick a career that seems most interesting, buy a house that suits our tastes, have kids when the time feels right, and then say, “Lord, just tell me what you’ve called me to.” We’re like ships that set anchor and then raise the sails.

Calling, or that exact match of one’s passions and the world’s needs, is the only place that’s going to feel right, like that plastic toy my son plays with where you each shape has only one hole that it fits through.  There are, for everyone, very specific places of calling, holes that are shaped exactly for us.

And the most dangerous part of the process is stalling.  We find a place that we are comfortable, or a place that we were called to at one point, and there we stay. Especially if we’re paid.  Never mind the growing sense of boredom or disconnection. We’re going to make it work as looooong as we can, because surely, that which made us happy yesterday should make us happy today.  Richard Rohr says that the biggest obstacle to us hearing God speak next is the way we heard him speak last.

For followers of Jesus, it should be the call or nothing.