Callings.

I want to talk about them for a few minutes. We use this word a lot. When I first started going to church, that’s what everyone talked about. People spoke about callings like they were waiting on a legitimate phone call from God with specific instructions. As if God were going to mouth into the phone, “Go to the closet and pull out a black shirt. Put it on. Grab your bag. Go outside. Take the A bus to downtown and wait for me there.”

Do I think God is mysterious and weighty? Yes. Do I think there are some things we can’t know right now? Sure. But I don’t think God holds out on people. The God I know doesn’t dangle a “calling” in front of your face and taunt, just try to figure this one out! I can’t imagine a God who tells us to put our life on pause and just for the calling to show up.

The calling talk exhausted me. It made me feel like maybe I missed the phone call. Like this phantom “calling” everyone talked about was visiting everyone but me. 

And then I learned something pretty valuable. It maybe took me 5 years of working for myself to let it sink in but I think I am grasping it now. My calling isn’t some castle in the distance that, if I work hard enough and pray even harder, I will suddenly get to. My calling could very well be a castle but it’s not in the distance and it’s not just going to appear. I must build it. Brick my brick, I have to build the life I want. I can’t just expect it to arrive without the work.

Now some people are going to be real dumb and try to convince you that you need to walk cautiously in everything you do. They will try to fill you with this “don’t step on the crack or you’ll break your grandma’s back” kinds of fear and tell you that IF YOU MESS UP THEN YOUR CALLING ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN.

Pause the crazy.

Let’s talk about Jonah for two seconds. Jonah is that character in the bible we all know from that one time he got swallowed by a whale after trying to run from God. The moral of that story always was: listen to God, don’t make him angry, or else a massive Orca is going to come and eat you.

Admittedly, I never grasped a deeper meaning to that story until recently when I read it for the first time as an adult. I honestly didn’t even know it was a book in the bible. Jonah has his own book. I mean, the dude there has to be a story bigger here than “man meets whale” if he got his own book. 

What we never talk about in the story of Jonah is how he clearly messed up because he allowed fear to take over. Turns out, it was fear and a little bit of pride. God gave Jonah a clear mission and Jonah didn’t really want it to go that way. He had bigger plans. He had different plans. This is me often: God, I want it to look different. Yes, use me. But wait… I have clear guidelines. 

God does not need to subscribe to our guidelines.

God used Jonah anyway. Even though Jonah ran as far from this calling as possible, God picked up right where he left off and had Jonah do the exact thing he wanted him to do before the whale drama. God didn’t give up on Jonah. He allowed Jonah to be human and he still picked him for his team.

The story doesn’t end when Jonah the human messes up, misses the mark or gets spit up by a whale. This is a story about redemption and it’s also a reminder: keep your eyes on God above the calling. 

I don’t think we can treat this idea of “calling” as if it were the 4 pm train that only stands still for a minute before it roars off into the distance. Your calling isn’t something you step into once. Your calling is something you are constantly stepping into.

You are in the middle of your calling right now. If you are in a bad job, you are in the right place. If you are in the best season of your marriage, you are in the right place. If you are suffering and shaking, you are STILL in the right place. In the bad and the good, your GPS location is not an accident and every space will be a teacher if you allow it to be.

Some stretches of time in your life are going to feel more meaningful than others. Some will herald more celebration than others. The mistake gets made when we belittle our current location in the journey because we just want to be “there” now. I think “there” is really just “here” with more wrinkles in its face. I tell myself, stop waiting to arrive and just be here now. This day counts. This hour. All of it.