My Arrival

In hindsight my life shows an ignorant boy struggling to arrive. All my goals and aspirations led towards something not yet obtained. The books I read, the Bible studies I taught, and the youth I ministered to were all attempts at fulfilling a sense of identity and quenching an eagerness for arrival. Granted there was a mixture of prideful egotism and conceit within my sincere attempt at discerning God’s guiding voice in my life. Regardless, I have never known a time when I did not feel the weight of conviction in figuring out God’s calling.

But what an interesting choice of words: “calling.”

What does it mean? Is God really calling me? Does God call everybody? Is it possible to miss a call? Does God call back?

These questions haunted me for some time in college. How did I know God wanted me to pastor? Was I hearing God right? Was I hearing God at all? Was my ego masking God’s voice?

On some level or another I believe we all face this existential anxiety about our vocation. For those of us in parish ministries, we fight our gut-wrenching soul about what God is really saying to us for years before we declare clarity. For those who are not in parish ministries, it is my understanding that the fear of missing out on God’s “so-called real plan” for you is a worry.

And it is here each one of us is confused, burdened, and convicted about our ontological anxiety. We walk around this earth asking the question, “Honestly, who am I really supposed to be?”

Frederick Buechhner says this about vocation:

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.


If this is the case, then my life’s office is definitely the church. This is where I do what I do and love every second of it. I believe in the power of the local church. I believe in the effectiveness a local congregation can have on community and in the world. My deep gladness and the world’s hunger seem to meet right here for me.

But hear me on this: The church office is not my vocation.

I believe my vocation is one and the same as yours – To be God’s person in the world. You can dress this up in many ways. For me, it is in a church environment. For you, it could be radically different. It is, however, time for this generation of seekers to drop the anxiety of striving to arrive and start learning the joy of becoming. The gift is not the final product but rather the climb. Choosing your job or identifying your “calling” does not complete you. It begins you. My prayer is for you to choose your heart’s deepest gladness and take it to the world’s greatest need.

But it’s hard to not strive for the feeling of completion or arrival. It is difficult to not beat yourself up over failing to hear God’s will for you life. If this is you, I ask you to take heart. God is much more interested in you becoming a child of God than anything else. For me, it was in accepting my identity that values journeying that has allowed me to proudly say: My arrival is not pastoring but rather living as a child of God; pastoring is simply the avenue that fulfills my heart’s gladness.

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