Finding calling

What am I made for? What am I supposed to do with my life? The question haunts me when I am alone, when there is nothing to do, when I am bored, when I am wondering what I should do. It is the anxiety producing existential crisis that has driven some philosophers to become madmen. I want to avoid that fate. I want to find my purpose and find my calling.

I believe the Christian answer, which is that we are created by God for His glory. That is the general call, to serve and glorify God, to live in a relationship of love with God. That answer is hard for others to believe but it is not difficult for me. It is the only answer so I believe it.

But what about the specific call? What am I made to do? I am consumed with the notion that I was created for something, that I have a purpose that is important in this world, but I don’t know what that purpose is. I want to find what that purpose is and have searched for a long time for this. I find a moment which I think is my call, but then the opportunity fails and so I’m left without a call. I’m left in abeyance, left waiting for an answer of what God wants me to do. I’m left waiting for God to reveal what he has called me to do.

In Chapter 10 of Crazy Love, Francis Chan makes an assertion that hits right at the troubled notion of my search for a purpose. He says: "most of us use "I'm waiting for God to reveal his calling on my life" as a means of avoiding action" (p 169). This troubled me because I don’t feel like it’s true at all. I feel I shouldn’t do actions without knowing what my calling is, or I will just end up hopping from one random action to the next. I have searched for God’s calling on my life. I don’t know what it is. I do want to act, but I don’t want to act and do something radical unless I know that’s what God wants me to do.

There are many people who have a clear call from God and who do great things. I’ve read books by these people (such as Mr. Chan) and found that they try to exhort others to do equally radical things, even when those people have not been called to do so. I had a friend tell me something deeply meaningful about this. He said that he has been to many retreats where a missionary from a certain place exhorts people to go to a certain place and give a convicting message that makes everyone think they need to be a missionary to that place, and after the talk, many people “realize” that their calling is to go to that place. The thing my friend told me was that it is not likely that everyone is called to be a missionary to that place. People have to find their own calling for their lives and realize that our callings are unique to ourselves and we can’t replace our own individual calling with another person’s calling.

I thought the quote from Mr. Chan that I quoted above was advocating a reckless move for something radical without feeling called from God, but the more I thought about it, the more I saw that there was a powerful truth there. One thing I have learned from my search for calling is to make sure I serve God in ways I know I should serve Him while I’m waiting for a more specific calling. There are people around me who need love. There are causes I can contribute to. There are places I can help. Even if I don’t feel called to do them, I should still do what I can do while I wait.

I should grow as well. Personally, I feel like the last two years of my life have not really advanced me. I haven’t seen much fruit from them. But I have grown inwardly and focusing on growing inwardly is another thing I can do while I wait for an external calling.

In another entry, I plan to write in more detail regarding what to do while waiting for God’s call, so stay tuned. What are some things you’ve done while waiting for God’s word in your life?