When You Lose Sight: Trusting God with Your Calling

In times of transition, we struggle and second-guess our decisions for work and calling. What I (and I suspect many others) didn’t realize was that the questioning would periodically creep back into my life, even ten years after college.

I remember one Christmas when I was seventeen years old. My uncle asked me about school and majors and my future plans. Then he said, “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” Turns out, sixty-year-olds can still have that late teen hesitation.

We know that work is work and a job is sometimes just a job, but that’s not much comfort when you have a desire to deeply impact the world around you.

Please, never forget that you are making an impact simply by being in the world.

Your life does have a calling placed upon it, but that calling may not align with a career. What we often want is a specific calling from God. We want to have an encounter like Moses or Mary—a direct prompting from God, asking us to follow God and lead others in a big, big way. When that doesn’t happen in the time and place we desire, we can become discouraged, disappointed, or downright angry.

As we long to hear from God and understand the details of our life’s work, we can lose sight of the larger calling placed on our lives.

When we become frustrated with our work—whether through monotony, stress, or disillusionment—it can help to zoom out from our day-to-day and reflect on God’s desires for our lives outside of work. Desires such as loving our neighbors, doing justice, practicing gratitude, and showing kindness all matter in our work, regardless of profession.

All work is sacred when we invite God into it.

As you’re waiting and searching for the next step, or if you’re feeling the boredom and restlessness that often comes with work, ask God to join you in it. Begin with conversation. Tell God what you are experiencing and what you are longing for in your work. Practice listening to the Holy Spirit. Notice the arrows pointing the way.

You haven’t missed your calling, my friend. You are living into it as you choose to seek God every day.

Scripture for meditation

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Colossians 3:15-17, NIV

Discussion & journal prompts

What might God be calling you to right now? Think larger.

Invite God into your work. Write out an invitation into a specific area.

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