Called to Cultivate: How to Discern Your Calling
Most of us have likely wrestled with the question of what we should do with our lives—it’s a dauntingly large question. Maybe you’ve been told that you need to figure out your calling in order to live a fulfilled life. I’ve personally spent many hours in prayer and seeking wise counsel as I’ve sought to pursue a vocation that utilizes my gifts and passions in a way that allows me to serve the Lord with my life.
A quick Google search on “finding your calling” brings us some of the following results:
How To Find Your Calling From God: 6 Steps to find God’s Calling in Your Life
Find Your Calling: 5 Steps to Identify Your Purpose
10 Ways To Uncover Your True Calling
15 Ways to Find Your Calling in Life for a Meaningful Life
Just reading those headlines makes me exhausted and confused. Do we need fifteen ways to find our calling, or just five?
Thankfully, we don’t have to be faced with a haunting fear that our lives won’t matter or we won’t live a meaningful life if we don’t find our “calling.” The good news for us as Christians is that Scripture tells us a more beautiful story. Nancy Ray, in a podcast episode on this topic says that there’s a difference in our calling and our assignments.
“Your calling never changes, but your assignment changes from season to season.”
Calling
The call of every Christian is the call to follow Jesus. We can pursue faithful obedience to Christ regardless of our role, circumstance, season of life, or salary. We don’t have to wonder about our calling, because Christ has told us. We are to love the Lord our God and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40).
We can honor and obey this calling whether we’re single, married, childless, the mother of multiple children, wealthy, or hardly have two pennies to rub together. This should give us a deep sense of peace and rest. We don’t have to panic to find our calling. We are already called, and in that calling, we are deeply loved by our Father. Because the truth is, when we’re faithfully following Christ, we are fulfilling our calling.
If we are faithfully following Christ by seeking to glorify Him, and love our neighbor, we don’t have to worry about missing our calling.
“We don’t have to wonder about our calling, because Christ has told us. We are to love the Lord our God and love our neighbor as ourselves.”
Assignments
One of the surest things about life is that it’s constantly changing. It’s helpful to know that our calling will always remain the same, even though our assignments throughout life will change.
An assignment is, by definition, a task or duty to which one is appointed. You can be appointed by God to different positions in different seasons of life. Your assignment right now will likely look different in six months, six years, and two decades.
Throughout our lives, we’ll step into different roles and assignments. Some types of roles include friend, daughter, wife, mother, full-time employee, part-time employee, boss, volunteer in the community, serving in the church, grandmother, or caretaker. These roles, or assignments, will likely continually change throughout your life. You might be in a particular role for the rest of your life, but some of your roles might be temporary. For example, maybe you’re in a season of life with a newborn baby. But babies don’t keep, and soon your season with a newborn will pass. Or maybe you’re in a season where you’ve stepped back from working outside the home to raise children. Or perhaps you’re rethinking some rhythms in your life to help you live more fully into the assignments the Lord has given you and prayerfully considering what adjustments you need to make. Each one of us is living into different assignments at different times.
How you experience your role during a given season will also change. For example, the first few years of marriage might be difficult as you learn and adjust to one another and to new rhythms of life. After welcoming a child into your family, you might have experienced postpartum depression. The difficulties and joys in that particular season of motherhood will be different than raising a teenager. You’re still a mother, but how you experience your role changes.
So instead of asking “what is my calling?” a more helpful question to ask is, “what is my current assignment?”
“If we are faithfully following Christ by seeking to glorify Him, and love our neighbor, we don’t have to worry about missing our calling. ”
The Call to Faithfulness
God’s assignments for your life belong to you, and not to your neighbor. It’s tempting to look at someone else’s life and feel like we’re behind or we need to catch up. Or to feel envious about what someone’s current assignments are and wish they were ours. But consider the assignments you’ve been entrusted with and seek to honor what you have been given.
As we live out our assignments, we must remember that we are simply called to faithfulness. J.D. Greer writes that “what God requires of you is not success, but faithfulness in what he has assigned to you.” He encourages us to ponder the question of what Jesus has called you to do, and reminds us that we aren't responsible to save the world, but we are responsible to follow Christ in our situation. “For a servant,” Greer says, “‘success’ in life is identifying what God has called you to and being completely faithful in it.” This frees us up from feeling like the weight of the world is on our shoulders. We are free to follow God in the ways that He calls us.
This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to pursue success, excellence, or big dreams. It’s not wrong to long to have a great impact on the world. But faithfulness means that we know how to put those things in their proper place. We work hard and leave the results in the Lord’s hands.
Isaiah 49:16 reminds us that we are engraved on the palms of God’s hands. God sees and knows His children. Because we are known and loved by God, we are free to joyfully commit to the people and place where the Lord has called us to. We can trust that the work we do matters to God and to others, even if we never see the impact of our work on this side of eternity.
Many of our moments and days feel achingly ordinary. We clean the house, steward finances, write emails, make dinner, build friendships, change a child’s diaper, and we do it over and over. But 1 Thessalonians 4:11 tells us it is good “to live quietly…and to work with your hands.” While there are women throughout history who have made dramatic impacts on society and on the world, there are millions of godly women who have lived quiet, faithful lives, diligently loving and serving their families and communities, executing their work with excellence. Their names might not be remembered on earth, but they have received a far better reward than earthly remembrance.
So sister, even if you are in a season where you feel confused, insignificant, or unseen, remember that the things that God deems important are often different than what the world values. With this in mind, take heart, and press into living a faithful life, no matter what your season of life looks like.
Chelsea Patterson Sobolik is the author of Called to Cultivate: A Gospel Vision for Women and Work (2023) and Longing for Motherhood; Holding Onto Hope in the Midst of Childlessness (2018), and works in Washington, D.C. as the Director of Government Relations at World Relief. She and her husband Michael recently welcomed their son home through international adoption. Follow her on Twitter @Chelspat or on Instagram
MORE FROM JOURNEYWOMEN
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen articles are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select writers each week, articles shared on the Journeywomen website do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the authors or any other resources mentioned.
