how to find your calling from God

 

God's special call is extremely rare - and is not based on our will and our self-assessment. Why one can only experience vocations but not seek them.

 

Find your calling! how to find your calling from God  This sentence can be found in this or a similar form on countless book covers, also and especially in the area of ​​Christian counseling literature. The authors call on their readers to search for God's calling for their own life and give them the tools they need to do so. Usually these are questionnaires and tests for self-assessment, especially on one's own talents and preferences. Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? Do you make decisions with your head or your gut? Would you rather design the website or set up the stage for an event? If you have filled out everything correctly, you will receive your result and thus your calling at the same time. Causa finita.

 

Vocation has nothing to do with strengths and talents

One is inclined to ask: Have these authors read a real vocation story? Maybe in the Scriptures? Of course this would be a rhetorical question because if they did they would have noticed some things.

 

1. The callingof a person is just not based on their strengths and talents. The fact that our Lord chose fickle Peter as the rock of his church would otherwise have to be punished as a case of gross negligence. But it was not flesh and blood that gave Peter the decisive insight. The matter is clearer in the Old Testament. Usually the first reaction of the appointee is a rejection of their own incapacity. Moses declares he is not a good speaker, Jeremiah interjects that he is too young, and so on. Imagine if one of these two tried to determine his calling using a self-assessment test. Even more, however, the appointment is not based on the personal preferences and interests of the person called. Who would want to to proclaim the wrath of God to one's own people or to take on the world power Egypt? If the corresponding procedure corresponded to one's own wishes, God would not even have to call the person in the first place, since sooner or later he would do it himself. This leads to the next point.

 

Callings are extremely rare

2. The called did not ask for their calling, let alone actively search for it. This can be found most impressively in the book of Jonah. The very first sentence of the story is significant. “The word of the Lord came to Jonah.” So the story begins. Not with “Jonah asked God for a calling” or “Jonah filled out a questionnaire”. The calling Word of God just happens, without request, without warning. The call comes from outside, not inside. And as is well known, Jona's reaction is not exactly evidence of great enthusiasm. He tries to flee from God's call, and only through profound measures can he be persuaded to go to Nineveh to announce God's judgment on the city. A professor against a whole metropolis. That brings us to our last point.

 

3. Vocations are extremely rare. Only the modern mania for equality, which has lost all sense of the sacred and the outstanding, could conceive the idea that every person receives a personal calling from God. But when you consider the actual nature of a calling, there is no reason to be annoyed about the low probability of one. Let's face it, most of us have more than enough to do with our uncalled lives.