Did God Call Me to My Work? Is Calling a Christian Notion?

You will spend around a third of your life working. You could, of course, wish that time away, enduring work so that you can be done with it; finding joy only on weekends, vacations, or retirement. Or your work could be nothing more than making money to pay the bills and keep on eating.

But most of us hope for more. Work should attach to something more transcendent and permanent than numbers on a paystub. And so we look to the language of calling. I would like to think that what I do from 8 to 5 is more than something I randomly stumbled upon to pay the bills. Maybe God called me to it. But can the concept be sustained? Three models are common.

Finding God’s Will

I most often hear “calling” of the ministry. “I’m interested in the ministry; I just don’t know if I’m called yet.” Missionaries often use similar language for their chosen country; more rarely, people might speak of a personal life mission—“I think my calling is to work at home and educate my children.”

But the framework has its challenges. First, it’s a bit short on biblical support. You will look in vain for passages using calling language for our personal, individual choices. Further, the problem is always establishing how to receive or recognize a call. Do we need a Damascus Road experience? Do people ever think they experienced a call and turn out to be wrong? And finally, what about when the “calling” changes? My family once pursued ministry in Africa; we joyfully served for eight years in Manila; now we live in Canada. Which one was our calling?

The Hands and Feet of Christ

A stronger framework dignifies our work by seeing God’s common grace as we serve one another. Martin Luther famously wrote that “God milks the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid.” How would we survive without farmers? But how would they survive without chemists to prepare fertiliser? And how would any of the products make their way to us without truck drivers and oil workers to keep them fuelled and road repair… and so on. In short, the world would be a harsh and brutish place were it not for myriad people who serve us invisibly. This “vocation” is how we love our fellow man and extend God’s universal kindness.

Thinking of our work this way dignifies every kind of labour. But perhaps that’s also its greatest liability. Is every kind of work actually beneficial? Should I be equally satisfied by preaching a sermon and building a casino? Might this affirm Christian apathy—after all, anything I do makes me the hands and feet of Christ! And is our achievement in work only that we keep the trucks on the road for another day? Are we working to kick the can for broken societies in rebellion against God? Is there not a way of working that is distinctively Christian?

Transformationalism

From the Dutch Reformed tradition, transformationalism is ambitious. We strive to improve our societies under Christ’s headship. “Seeking the welfare of the city where God has sent us” (Jer. 29:5-7), we actively strategize to push forward the authority of Christ in every part of culture and society.

Transformationalism rightly drives us to aspire for more. We ought to educate ourselves; we ought to plan our way; whatever our trade, we ought to work for the glory of God and the spread of the gospel. And yet there are challenges. The first is applying this vision to every vocation. It’s immediately obvious how to write books, adjudicate laws, or teach students in distinctly Christian ways; it’s less obvious how to cut grass or tighten a pipe fitting in ways that move society towards further righteousness. Second, while the vision of transforming society inspires, sometimes we really ought to just feed our families. Third, the historical record is not good on people who strategize a Christian vision for their societies. Often, we can’t anticipate where a policy or a candidate will actually lead. Finally, the Scripture expects that the default Christian experience will be perpetual persecution from a hostile world (Matt. 5:10-12; 2 Tim. 3:12; 1 Pet. 4:12-14)—rather a far cry from sitting at the top of a Christian society. One begins to wonder if this framework isn’t the dream of a privileged few Christian communities living in free, pluralistic societies but entirely detached from the reality of the persecuted church or even the New Testament itself.

An Alternative Framework

But perhaps we could reserve “calling” language for the actual categories we find in Scripture—categories like the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20) or loving God and neighbour (Matt. 22:36–40) or glorifying God (1 Cor. 10:31) rather than things like “plumber” or “electrician.” These are what the New Testament actually calls us to and they apply equally to every Christian in every situation. There is no need to seek a lightning-bolt experience or guess at strategies for achieving societal righteousness in unbelievers. This framework is the clearest and simplest. Go do what the New Testament tells you to be doing.

But does this mean that our view of vocation is only, “God doesn’t care what you do so long as you love him”? Quite on the contrary, our specific and personal choice of vocation extends from our highest calling the way that applications follow from a theological principle. Apply these universal mandates within your individual skills, opportunities, and desires. Live in wisdom, applying biblical commands in each part of your life and you will be led to make specific decisions about your work. Each of us will then live out our shared Christian calling in individually distinct ways.

In fact, our confidence is richer still. We maintain that the universal commands best help us achieve the goals of the other three approaches. The best hope of finding God’s will (doing what He wants you to do), the best way to serve fellow man (hands and feet of Christ), and even the best way to bring good in society (transformationalism) is to obey the basic commands that apply to every person. In so doing, we will strategically invest in ourselves to maximize the impact of our labour. We will find true dignity in our work because we know the ultimate purpose. And we will maintain flexibility as our opportunities change, rather than committing to a “calling” that can never be adjusted.

You should view your work as more than making money and better than a purgatory to be endured. But a healthy view of work can only rest on the richer foundation of a full Christian theology.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (Col 3:23-24)