What’s Your Vocation?
A few years ago a friend of mine recommended Jamie Winship’s book Living Fearless. I got it and read it in a few days. Seemed pretty cool but not particularly challenging. I agreed with his premises and moved on because nothing he said felt particularly new to me. I knew my identity as a child of God and I felt pretty sure about my identity in other ways too. Sort of. In reality, the Lord was transforming me from a person who only loved people in limited ways to someone who could love a lot more. To do that I had to go through a period of transformation and leave the shell of who I identified as behind.
It wasn’t until this year, after writing about the Blood of the Lamb, that I “met” Jamie again and watched one of his videos that the word - identity - started to click. I asked myself a single question:
Can anyone hear God?
I have a lifetime of receiving answers to prayer in extreme situations. I wouldn’t have been born if my mother hadn’t heard God speak to her, but I never even imagined that I could hear from God audibly like she did. I’ve gotten signs, answers, and blessings from the Lord Jesus instead and those were more than enough!
Unlike a few of my friends who seem to have God whispering in their ears on a daily basis I have always “saved” up my serious questions for dire situations. Big events. In fact, most of my testimony revolves around desperate situations where I felt passionate enough to fast for long weeks or threaten God (yes, seriously) or do something drastic to get some answers. Stress puts me on my knees, literally. I’ve been forced into having a conversation with God about one thing after another. I wouldn’t have ever gotten serious about my prayer life if everything went well. Obstacles motivate me to fight harder to hear Him.
Frustration has always brought me to the Cross.
But when I’m not suffering or frustrated? I tend to manage my life without expecting God to give me clear answers. I live by principles instead.
Principles make my heart sing. They’re a roadmap. I love principles!
The idea of participating with God in a direct conversation every single day or receiving a personal name or identity like Much Afraid received in Hind’s Feet on High Places was not on my radar. I could have gone the rest of my life without ever asking for better ears to hear Him or a “special” name.
Enter Community. Stupid community! Christians are always sharpening me.
I signed myself up to teach a new sort of course this summer. It starts this week. When I signed up for it I volunteered without thinking. I just wanted a chance to speak into my son’s life directly, about a subject I love, without it feeling like a lecture. But teaching the teens as a group always forces me to pray. I mean, they’re incredible kids. And they ask tough questions. I prayed to prepare.
The more I prayed the more I realized that the heart of vocation, the heart of meaningful, skillful labor, is hearing. A vocation is a calling. You can’t possibly hear your calling unless you pay attention to the One who calls!
One day while I was praying about the foundations of business I got frustrated about a problem I had and what to teach the teens. A different friend from the first one shared a video on Youtube by Jamie Winship about identity that day. She hadn’t read his book yet, but she loved his talks which have recently been added to that platform.
Identity became intriguing to me. To receive your identity you have to hear from God.
I didn’t know it exactly at that time but identity was the very crux of my issue. I was struggling with how to honestly explain to the teens which mistakes I had made in Spain and why all my very cool, very clever business principles didn’t apply neatly here. It’s always good to begin with your failures when talking to teens. If you don’t start there they’ll sniff them out your hypocrisy like bloodhounds. Teens are magnets for hypocrisy. It’s like their superhero sense or something.
I don’t have a primary vocation in Spain and that has really crippled my ability to prosper. By prosper I don’t just mean financially, I also mean in general ways like making friends and developing roots in the community. So I knew that when I began the lessons I would have to admit that to the teens.
I’ve juggled my various vocations (identities) and never been able to commit to any one vocation here. I used to blame myself for that but then all sorts of weird obstacles kept popping up. Now, I think it’s because if I had ever been truly successful I would have committed wholeheartedly to becoming that role and would have stopped seeking the identity God had for me. But I didn’t know that until I started prepping for this class!
If you aren’t sure of your identity you don’t know how to respond well in different circumstances, because you aren’t sure what your role is.
I had no clue. Worse, I kept looking for my identity out in the world or in other people.
Was I an American and then an expat or the other way around? How did the other expats handle living here between two loyalties? Should I try to blend in or not worry about being different? How did the American Christians handle sharing their lives?
Answer? They put their kids in school. They couldn’t help me. They didn’t know how to be good Christian homeschoolers here. They’d never met one.
Was I a homeschooler before a good neighbor or was being a Christian neighbor more important than homeschooling? Was being a wife my primary identity if that meant not being a massage therapist? Was I a copywriter or a teacher or a “real” writer or what?
Not being clear on my vocation meant not having my ducks in a row. It was frustrating. I grew ever more fearful and doubtful about how to handle any situation. I am a worshipper. I was all ready to go and bow down to the god of my own conceptual understanding, but the real God wouldn’t let me! I got stuck and stuck meant staying home and praying a lot more.
It was confusing.
Not only had I moved to a new country during a pandemic after leaving a six figure career but I had also gotten remarried to a person who didn’t ever cross my boundaries and encourage me to become anything. My husband has the audacity to just love me no matter what I do! Gah! Then I started homeschooling in a country where homeschooling is a very grey area. I had no idea what to prioritize! I just tried to figure it out day-by-day.
And little by little the Lord taught me how to shut up.
Ok, He called it listening. I didn’t hear much. But I started practicing the habit of shutting up.
I started practicing the habit of attending to His Word and meditating on His work, specifically on the Blood of the Lamb. I started practicing the habit of writing here to explain whatever I had learned. I started groups to build a community that was safe. I tried to be faithful to the work in front of me even as my mind searched and searched and searched like the eye of Sauron for ONE ROLE TO RULE THEM ALL!!!!!!!
But searching led to … nothing. Nothing worked. I’d get three inches in one area and then it’d fall apart. I got help in another job but it would only last a month.
The only activities that showed real fruit were my family, my groups, and this blog which led to a teaching job. Then that grew too and I was like, “Does this mean I’m a real teacher now? Cuz I don’t feel like one.”
I wanted ONE role that I could put my whole soul into, but every role came with more questions.
So when in Jamie Winship’s video he mentions that the first step to hearing from God is asking the Lord to bind us to His mind and bind us to His heart, I sat up and paid attention.
That’s covenant terminology - bind - and it is powerful stuff. It’s a vow, a lifetime commitment. Were my thoughts really bound up with God’s? No. Did I look to Him in my heart of hearts to give me my identity everyday? No.
Is that what He wanted? Yes.
How about you? Do you want to ask the Lord to bind your heart and mind to Him?
Talk more soon, Katie