Callings Part I

“…it is a preposterous and brutish thing to fix or fall upon any weighty business, such as a calling or condition of life, without a careful pondering it in the balance of sound reason.” -Richard Steele, 1684

In last week’s newsletter, I impudently questioned the whole idea of a college education. How ironic that it should come from someone with three such degrees. But I did stress the idea of catching a vision for one’s life. To me it is wisdom to preach the latter rather than blindly follow our conventional cultural stampede, which trumpets the virtues of a college education with no sense of calling upon one’s life. (Our culture presses the value of literacy but has no concept of how that skill should be directed and utilized. Our forefathers taught people to read so that they could, first of all, read the Bible for themselves. Now we teach students to read and offer up a diet of any sensual trash to further their ‘skill development.’ How else do you explain “Rolling Stone” magazine and other such ilk in high school libraries?) Of course, the whole concept of calling has been extensively muddled with time since the Puritans first developed and enunciated this valuable Christian concept. We all have been in church services where someone has come forward to announce they have been ‘called’ into full-time Christian service. Everyone then responds appropriately with enthusiastic ‘amens.’ I have yet to witness someone coming forward to announce that they feel God has called them to be a chicken farmer in South Dakota. I would love to see the perplexed response of the audience if such an event ever transpired. In protestant theology, finding one’s calling as a chicken farmer is just as valid and equal cause for rejoicing as any other.

For the next couple of weeks, I would like to develop the theme of ‘finding your calling’ in these pages. It is a Puritan concept that bears examination and has been largely lost in our time. I, for one, feel that for every one time we mention ‘going on to college’ in conversation with our children (which in our house was quite often), we need to mention ‘vision’ or ‘calling’ just as often or more so. We are bending these young twigs and unashamedly so.

Our first calling is to ‘take hold of the eternal life to which you were called’ (I Tim. 6:12). We are to make sure of our spiritual calling and seek to ‘flee from the wrath to come.’ But after that, we have a temporal calling, a place of service, where we walk in a way that is beneficial to society and ourselves. The second request of the prodigal son was for the father to make him one of his hired servants. It should also be our desire to find a place of service in God’s kingdom. And here is where we often err. The whole Protestant Reformation overthrew the concept of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ callings. All labor, whether secular or sacred, was thereafter seen as equal before God. To be a monk, nun, or priest was no different than any secular profession as to favor in God’s eyes. As William Tyndale put it, “…there is difference betwixt washing of dishes and preaching of the word of God; but as touching to please God; none at all.” The Puritans taught that God calls every man and woman to serve Him in some ‘peculiar’ employment in this world, both for their own and the common good.

I love the idea that education and all ensuing occupations are not just private choices to enhance our own status and well-being. We should never applaud a young person who desires to be a doctor because it would bring them wealth and prestige. It must be approached as a place and means of sacred service both to God and to man. Equally so, it should be the same with would-be plumbers, dental hygienists, beauticians, and, yes, chicken farmers. How often do we place vocational counseling in the context of Phil. 2:4, “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” If we have not, is it not time?