What Is a Calling?

September 21, 2022

By Jo Wiersema

Midweek Musings is a weekly Covenant blog with a variety of authors and a variety of topics.

I’ve been creating life plans since I was four years old. I remember sitting in my bedroom and thinking through exactly what needed to happen in Kindergarten for me to fulfill my life dream of being a pirate.

When and where I would meet my first pirate and convince them to take me under their care and teach me the art of pirating. Unfortunately, God had other plans, and I never quite met that pirate.

To be called is beyond pastoral ministry. I believe a call is something that is available to everyone, if only we can slow down enough to listen.

Maybe your call is something noble like nursing or being a defense attorney.

Maybe your calling is to bring baked goods into your corporate office and bring small joys to the water cooler.

Your calling might just be gardening and bringing light to God’s creation. To be called into ministry is a weighty ask. The idea that I might have a better idea of what God is saying than the person down the streets is wildly presumptive. I listen, I pray, and as I live out each call, all I can do is to keep listening.

No job stays the same through the entire time you’re there. Even when we would love it to be the same week to week or year to year, things change. The job itself may change as your organizations grows or shrinks or changes their mission, or maybe you change. There will be busy seasons, and even between those busy seasons it will vary. Hopefully, there will be calmer seasons.

In my humble opinion: To listen, really listen... is key to discerning if this call is still the right one. It’s important to figure out if you’re just frustrated in the moment, or if there’s an opportunity to a new call.

I once heard that figuring out a call is like falling in love. There’s a “click” when you figure it out, when you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. When you’re giddy and excited.

I loved my corporate job, I loved the people, I loved the financial security, but as the kids say, “the vibes were off”. So, we do what anyone can do...

We sit back, and we listen. We take our 10-year master plan and put it in the attic and go day by day.

Every couple of months or so I come up with a new master plan, fully knowing it’s more of a safety blanket to make me feel better and not actually a plan.

My plan now?

Do my best.

Preach in a way that connects with at least a person or two. Talk to our youth group about what it means to be ourselves and who even are we. I try to give as much love as I can to as many people as I can.

I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can tell you that you’re needed somewhere. And no matter what’s going on or where you’re at in life, you are absolutely enough.