Your calling isn’t just your job.

A calling is a command from God.

And our overall calling is to Love God and Others (Matt 22:36-40) but we all have our individual way of carrying that general command out.

In a practical sense “Love others” means to provide for the spiritual and physical needs of your family and others. Your ‘individual’ calling is just how you carry this out as an individual. There are three categories for your individual callings:

1. Vocational Callings – Providing for physical needs. We have been called to provide for our family and others (1 Tim 5:18, Eph 4:28)
2. Gift Related Callings – Providing for spiritual needs. We are a part of the body of Christ. (1 Cor 12)
3. Positional Callings – Biblical commands specific to your position in life (parent, child, spouse, etc).

So you already know what your calling is: Love God and love others… you just have to figure out how to express that love as an individual.

So don’t be frozen in thinking, “Only one of these jobs is from God and if I pick the wrong one I’m outside my calling.” They all could be viable jobs IF you can love God and others (by providing for others spiritual and physical needs), thus fulfilling the actual higher calling. You just need to seek wisdom on which might be the better option because one job might pay more money to help with providing for your family’s physical needs but it requires longer hours so you can’t provide for their spiritual needs.

So do this…

Vocational Calling: Go get a job that will help you love your family by providing for their physical needs. But not a job where you have to work so much that you can’t provide for their spiritual needs. If you’re at a stay-at-home parent, you can ‘provide’ by managing expenses while taking seriously the spiritual and physical needs of your kids and spouse.

Gift Related Callings: Figure out what you’re pretty good at and find a place to use that gift.  If you haven’t figured that out, serve in situations that most anyone can do, like being a greeter at church, helping organize events, helping with set up or clean up at events or encouraging others at the gym. The main thing is to look for opportunities to serve.

Positional Callings: Spouse, parent, child, boss, employee, etc. Do what the Bible tells you to do in your position.

Now manage all your little callings so you can maximize the big calling: Love God and others.

Note: Don’t make the mistake of forcing gift related callings to be your vocational calling. Just because you’re a good singer doesn’t mean that needs to be your job. Just because you’re good at eating hot dogs doesn’t mean that should be your job. Your job is so you can provide for physical needs of you, your family and others, meaning you need to get paid, while your spiritual gifts are to provide for others spiritual needs. But if you can effectively provide for your and your family’s physical needs by getting paid for your spiritual gift, then awesome, consider it.

During the week Paul made tents and on the Sabbath ministered.

Acts 18:3-4 and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.