How to Know If You’ve Found Your True Calling

I spent my late teens and early twenties agonizing over the mystery of my true calling. Looking back, I now see that I was laboring under the mistaken notion that there was a very specific dot I should be standing on, some combination of my abilities and God’s will that would put me at the very center of God’s perfect plan for my life. I’m grateful that practical issues like the need to make a living prevented me from too much wheel-spinning. However, the experience has influenced my view of what it takes to find one’s calling as well as how I think about what I do now with my daily allotment of time and energy.

When I scuttled the ship of my career in human resources to raise tiny humans on this country hill in Maine, did I abandon my “true calling,” or was this when I actually found my calling? And now that I live in an empty nest with a newly retired husband, do I need to go in search of another calling from God? Does it matter that I earn substantially more as a substitute teacher than I ever receive from my writing and speaking?

You Have a Calling

Karen Swallow Prior experienced a major upheaval in her own career path when she left her role as a college professor. Along the way, her thoughts on vocation have coalesced around the literal definition of calling: “an audible sound, cry, or summons.”

For someone to be called, there must be, first of all, a caller. Like many young adults, I strained my ears listening for the voice of God to come to me in some mystical fashion. Prior suggests that, instead, “God uses the things he has made—other people, our circumstances, our gifts, and even our passions—to sound that call. It is not our job to be called. It is our job to answer the call.”

Rather than rummaging around in my emotional entrails to discover how I feel about the thing I’m doing, I’m free to find fulfillment in doing the next thing—even if I don’t get paid for the work I’m most passionate about.

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Prior helps me to see that I am in partnership with God in my vocation or calling, and that even the way I perceive the brokenness of the world is a clue to the way God wants me to use my gifts. Since the church’s need for biblical literacy pains me like a pebble in the shoe, I’ll keep on writing and teaching, sharing good resources, and using every opportunity to help my readers become confident Christ followers and students of God’s Word.

Most fascinating to me was the author’s musings on truth, goodness, and beauty, and the inherent relationship among the three. We’re used to hearing people say, “All truth is God’s truth,” but when do we ever hear, “All goodness is God’s goodness,” or “All beauty is God’s beauty”? He’s behind all that’s true, good, and beautiful, and he has invited his image bearers to find our greatest fulfillment in adding to the truth, goodness, and beauty of his world. In this, we discover our true calling as we do, faithfully and well, the work we’ve been given to do.

What Other Reviewers Are Saying

“Prior offers wisdom, experience, and horse sense not just to students preparing for the lives ahead of them but to adults who find themselves floundering. You Have a Calling deftly identifies the lies that distort our sense of what we are meant to accomplish in life and outlines a better way forward.”
—Susan Wise Bauer, author of History of the Ancient World and The Well-Educated Mind

“With her usual wisdom and clarity, Prior dives deep into something that we all wrestle with: our place in the world and the work we’ve been given to do. I heartily commend this book.”
—Andrew Peterson, singer, songwriter, and author

P.S. If you’re intrigued by this glimpse of Karen Swallow Prior’s writing, you’ll want to check out my reviews and recommendations of her other work.

• She has created a series of guides to reading and reflecting on the classics. I reviewed the guide for Heart of Darkness HERE.
• KSP is a lifelong reader, a definite virtue, and in her 2018 book On Reading Well, she asserts that reading is also a path to further virtue.
• In The Evangelical Imagination, Prior examines ten concepts deeply embedded in the imagination, the parlance, and the foundations of evangelical Christianity.
• And finally, her biography of Hannah More was one of the first books I reviewed here on the blog. CLICK HERE for a blast from the past.

Holding You in the Light,

You Have a Calling refines our understanding of how our work reflects the image of God through truth, goodness, and beauty. This turns my attention to how my gifts can be used by God in service to my neighbor. @KSPrior @ReadBakerBooks

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More Biblical Encouragement for You on the YouVersion App

As you know, I’m committed to the truth that women can become confident followers of God and students of his Word, and it’s my goal to help you along that path. At Living Our Days, I provide biblical content and resources to encourage biblical literacy and faithful living, and now I’m sharing devotional content on the YouVersion app. Visit my profile page to get free access to all the reading plans!

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Many thanks to Baker Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book to facilitate my review, which is, of course, offered freely and with honesty.