Don’t Be Afraid of Missing Your Calling

I was angry with God. Was He trying to ruin my life? How could He be calling my family to mission work, as my parents claimed? 

I was scared that becoming a missionary would upend all my plans for my life; furthermore, I didn’t think it was possible for us to go abroad. My mother had been suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome for quite some time; she had to use a wheelchair, and sometimes she was too weak even to talk. There was no way we could travel and live overseas.

However, my parents decided to make my mother’s health the test of their calling, and at a special prayer and anointing service, she was instantly healed. When she walked down our street, instead of being pushed in the wheelchair, our neighbors came out of their houses to ask us what had happened, and she was able to witness about the power and calling of God.

After this, I accepted God’s call to our family, although I was still somewhat reluctant. Eventually, I came to see God’s care and thought for me, too, as becoming a missionary family led to other significant adventures in my life.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God confirmed every question about our calling with such obvious signs and miracles?

However, I have found that this is the exception rather than the rule. I have only experienced clear miracles or a deep “gut sense” of knowing a couple of times in my life. When I had to make decisions about what to study, where to go to school, where to work, or even whom to marry, more often than not, there were no flashy signs or profound impressions.

Sometimes this made me anxious. What was my calling? What if I made a wrong decision and missed my calling?

However, after more study and life experience, I realized that perhaps my definition of “calling” was too narrow.

Expanding My Thoughts on “Calling”

For one, I found that my calling was not simply my career. Of course, God gave me skills, spiritual gifts, and interests that I can use in my work life. My work can be part of His purpose for me.

But “calling” is so much bigger — and smaller — than that.

As I looked at Scripture, I perceived that God seems to care more about the person I was — and the person I was becoming — as I made my life choices, rather than being most concerned about precisely what school I went to or what job I took.

I also began to see that my calling was not just to “one big thing.” Psalm 23:3 intrigued me, where it says, “He guides me along the right paths…” (NIV, emphasis added)

I do believe that, sometimes, God may indicate a clear, specific thing that He wants us to do, just as He did for me and my family in the past.

There are also biblical examples of God calling people for an explicit task, such as the call of Abraham to go to a new land or of Jonah to preach to Nineveh.

However, these people also had to live out the rest of their lives, their normal day-to-day, before and beyond the moment they received that particular call from God.

So perhaps more often than not, there isn’t only one thing God calls us to. 

God is love (1 John 4:8), and love does not force our will. Thus, I believe God often waits for us to make a choice about going this way or that. Just like Abraham had to start moving forward even though he didn’t know exactly where he was going (see Gen. 12:1–9), we also may have to go step-by-step without a detailed revelation from the beginning. When we read Abraham’s story in Genesis, we can see that he made choices about his direction, where he stopped, and what he did along the way, but also that God gave him clear guidance at different stages of the journey. So it may be for us.

God gives us wisdom and reason. He gives us the principles in Scripture. He gives us friends and family who may have keen insights to help us make a choice. He may give us little inner nudges and green flags that could apply to more than one potential path instead of huge signposts pointing to only one direction.

What has God Called Us To?

If “calling” is more than a single career or event, what exactly are we called to? Micah 6:8 boldly states that God has shown us what is good. He wants us to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [Him]” (NIV).

Here are a few more callings the Bible describes:

• We are called into fellowship, or partnership, with Jesus (1 Cor. 1:9).
  
• We are called to remain in Christ and His love, bearing lasting fruit, loving each other, and experiencing complete joy (John 15:1–17, cf. Gal. 5:22–23).
  
• We are called to walk in love, patience, gentleness, and humility (Eph. 4:1–2).
  
• We are chosen to declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9).
  
• We are called to use our spiritual gifts for the good of others and for building up the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12; Eph. 4:11–16).
  

These callings are truly significant. The choices we make to follow these callings impact not only our present but have ripple effects for eternity.

And yet these callings may also look very “small” and ordinary.

They can be carried out on the most mundane days, in the tiniest of tasks and interactions. These callings can be fulfilled in all kinds of jobs and careers. They can be realized whether you are married or single.

Don’t be Afraid of Missing Your Calling

If God has something specific that He wants you to do, He will make it clear one way or another.

But if a clear sense of direction to a particular career, school, or mission field doesn’t come, don’t be afraid of missing your calling. Sometimes we may not even realize how God has led us until much later!

God has so many callings that you can be living out wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Focus on living out the callings God has made unmistakably clear in the Bible, and the rest will fall into place. 

As you ask God for wisdom and choose a path to follow, as you go about your ordinary day and faithfully take care of your responsibilities, and as you interact with the people God puts in your life — you can be fulfilling God’s foundational call to love Him with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love others as you love yourself (Matt. 22:37–40).