Transformationalism rightly drives us to aspire for more. We ought to educate ourselves; we ought to plan our way; whatever our trade, we ought to work for the glory of God and the spread of the gospel. And yet there are challenges.

You will spend around a third of your life working. You could, of course, wish that time away, enduring work so that you can be done with it; finding joy only on weekends, vacations, or retirement. Or your work could be nothing more than making money to pay the bills and keep on eating.

But most of us hope for more. Work should attach to something more transcendent and permanent than numbers on a paystub. And so we look to the language of calling. I would like to think that what I do from 8 to 5 is more than something I randomly stumbled upon to pay the bills. Maybe God called me to it. But can the concept be sustained? Three models are common.

Finding God’s Will

I most often hear “calling” of the ministry. “I’m interested in the ministry; I just don’t know if I’m called yet.” Missionaries often use similar language for their chosen country; more rarely, people might speak of a personal life mission—“I think my calling is to work at home and educate my children.”

But the framework has its challenges. First, it’s a bit short on biblical support. You will look in vain for passages using calling language for our personal, individual choices. Further, the problem is always establishing how to receive or recognize a call. Do we need a Damascus Road experience? Do people ever think they experienced a call and turn out to be wrong? And finally, what about when the “calling” changes? My family once pursued ministry in Africa; we joyfully served for eight years in Manila; now we live in Canada. Which one was our calling?

The Hands and Feet of Christ

A stronger framework dignifies our work by seeing God’s common grace as we serve one another. Martin Luther famously wrote that “God milks the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid.” How would we survive without farmers? But how would they survive without chemists to prepare fertiliser? And how would any of the products make their way to us without truck drivers and oil workers to keep them fuelled and road repair… and so on. In short, the world would be a harsh and brutish place were it not for myriad people who serve us invisibly. This “vocation” is how we love our fellow man and extend God’s universal kindness.

Thinking of our work this way dignifies every kind of labour. But perhaps that’s also its greatest liability. Is every kind of work actually beneficial? Should I be equally satisfied by preaching a sermon and building a casino? Might this affirm Christian apathy—after all, anything I do makes me the hands and feet of Christ!

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