For me, a series of “sonar pings” leading me to my work. A high school English teacher who suggested I could be a writer. The President of my college asking if I had considered writing as a career. A minister, who did not know me, telling me that I should write. Finally, my Alzheimer’s-afflicted father listening to me talk about career options, suddenly coming out of his silence, slamming his hand down on the table, and shouting, “You’re a WRITER!”

This is both encouraging and discouraging to an older person like me, who really didn’t find what I can rest in and be assured of now, that I do well, until late in life. But I agree with the wisdom of these words here.

A slight tangent this, and if my questions sound skeptical, I confess it?s because I?m jealous of those with a sense of specific calling and partly panicked that I?ve missed mine.
I can take some soundings from my situation and status: I?m a husband, a father, a son, and have corresponding duties. Where ongoing choices are involved, things are more tricky: job, church, other commitments.
There?s Jesus?s personal calling (follow me), which I can read as WWJD or, better, an invitation/command to pursue a dynamic relationship with his presence.
Apart from that, which biblical promises do we draw on to justify our expectation for a sense of specific calling?
Doesn?t a vocation boil down to a kind of short-hand, or a pinning down of our identity? Isn?t it a crib-sheet for decision-making? Can?t it be seen to fill the same hole as simplistic personality typing or even astrology? Is there a danger of it being idolatrous? Rather than being happy with daily manna, isn?t it an expectation for a once-for-all down-payment of contentment?
Honestly, I?m keen to be contradicted and given some practical pointers on this.
SB

“If we keep our lives open, the right place will find us.” Rather, If we stay obedient God will lead us.
I would define that obedience as an “invitation/command to pursue a dynamic relationship with his presence” using Steve Bird’s phrasing.
I have been a missionary for 17 years now. And I am doing what I am doing because God has faithfully lead me. To me it has rarely been a question of knowing clearly what my vocation should be and thus being “fulfilled”, as much as a knowing who is leading me and letting be enough to fulfill me.
Ok now to your question. God used, a Baptist prayer movement to draw me. He used the bass player of the “Sweet Comfort Band” to save me. He used an old preacher at a youth camp to call me to missions. A caring pastor who was a great teacher to urge me to study theology. A missionary who was laid up in the hospital to lead me to SIM (my mission organization) and lastly he used a missionary travel journal to lead me to Paraguay.
Vocation ehh who needs it? I’ve got Him

Just added “God Hides in Plain Sight” View to my shopping cart at amazon. It looks terrific. As a pastor, one of my greatest challenges and struggles is helping believers understand how their faith connects to their lives Monday through Saturday. The legacy of the Enlightenment, which has resulted in us living dualistic lives–sacred and secular–is so ingrained in us. I have found in my own life and that of others that the doctrine of vocational calling is a strong tonic for waking people up (and myself) from the spell that modernity has cast over us.
Jim Belcher
Deep Church

I appreciate the way N.T. Wright uses “vocation” which seems in some ways similar to the way it’s used here. We do need a unity in our approach to life that breaks down the artificial “sacred/secular” divide. I’ve followed various religions over the course of my life, but I’ve always tried to avoid compartmentalizing faith away from other aspects of my life.
With that said, I didn’t really find a vocation. I was a teen parent of two children and twice married before I was twenty. That greatly constrains the luxury of searching for a “calling” even in a nation as wealthy as ours. I ended up with a career that suits me or to which I’ve suited myself. At some points, it’s hard to tell the difference. I did a lot of things to survive before I got to where I am, and it was as much luck and happenstance as anything that I ended up in the job that became my career.
It’s my observation that most human beings through most of human history and into the present have had relatively little choice about “vocation”. The only choice they have had is the manner in which they will approach their “lot in life” and in which they will live it out. I don’t think that it’s necessarily a bad thing to be so wealthy as a nation that most do have the freedom to choose what they will do. I certainly want my children to have every opportunity possible. But I am aware that it is a luxury of a wealthy society.

I’m with Steve Bird here. This idea of vocation and calling has become something very different in our modern context and often adds to confusion. I know from my own personal experience that looking for a specific vocation has come up pretty empty. What I have come to believe is that we need to seek God and be obedient to God in the moment, where ever that is. That last statement is common sense and we would all agree, but what I have observed is that in the search for vocation and calling we often start looking ahead and miss God’s presence in the now. Another problem I have about this whole vocation is that it’s something very different in our modern/post-modern context than has historically been understood. About 2/3 of the world has no option for vocation and no ability to even ask this question. I have come to understand vocation in broader terms that apply where ever one specifically finds oneself.

I am grateful for Deb B, Ramona and Jim R., Wilbur S., Bill J., Dan B., They were encouragers and role models.

God calls us to do our best with the gifts he has given. Sometimes that means that we need to bloom where He plants us. I thought for years that I should have gone into “ministry” instead of engineering until I realized that God had placed me in the “ministry of engineering” field. This is where I am supposed to show Christ to those around me by my ethical actions and love.
I think too many of us want to “go to do ministry” instead of just doing it. I was called by God to do the normal things of life that all Christians should do: Be a good husband and father, work in my job to the best of my ability and love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and strength and love my neighbor as myself.
Thats it, I’m not a pastor, I’m not Billy Graham or Rob Bell, I’m just me working out my salvation and that is OK.

The vocation that we all have been given is one of stewardship. We are to take care of what God has given us. We can all find ourselves in a certain situation that requires our care, be it a church body as a pastor or the human body as a doctor or bridges as a civil engineer. It is more about cultivating the current situation than about anything else. God will take care of the rest.

I believe that God’s will as expressed ‘be a good (fill in the blank) is just the minimum standard for all believers. It is not a ‘calling’ but basically a command to all who name the name of Jesus as Lord so as not to cause His Name to be blasphemed among the unbelievers.
It is evident that Jesus didn’t call everyone to ‘ministry’ or discipleship leading to apostleship. Those he ‘called’ did in fact leave everything including their families for a time.
The general call to all was ‘Whosoever will follow me’ let him take up his cross and follow me. I believe he was speaking specifically in regards to those endeavors that may require giving up professions etc. The key is ‘whosoever will’. I think that leaves room for a no condemnation personal choice.That is, those who decide not to are still saved by grace, they are just choosing to live out their lives in a less ministry directed fashion. as far as ‘gifts’ are concerned, I believe that is really referring to various gifts of the Spirit for the edification of the church and not ‘gifts of engineering, or gifts of journalism. Those propensities are really more a part of DNA and parental upbringing..the honesty and integrity attached to those goals and professions and being a dutiful worker are Godly attributes that are commands for the believer and not a ‘calling’.

Vocation v. Occupation. For me, it was Occupation first, and then, somehow, a vocation surfaced, not unlike the drilling of the well first, with water gushing later. While I saw fellow-theatre majors heading off to NYC and LA, my journey led me to NASHVILLE, TN. Not to sing or write music, but to SELL BOOKS DOOR TO DOOR. 5 summers of working my way thru college would have only happened because I was one of 8 kids from an Italian Catholic family in Peoria Illinois and there was no way i was gonna work the State of Illinois highway maintenance job another summer! Being one of 8 kids is the mother of Vocation. Merge the “chopping wood and carrying water” piece with the pinewood turned HUMAN by the touch of Jesus and you’ve got the well.