Does Every Christian Have “A Calling”?

No, I don’t mean a calling in the sense that we come across it in the CBS/Netflix series, Manifest (and before you ask, yes, we have watched every episode . . .). I mean in the sense of a belief that God has a particular plan for each of our lives—a life purpose we are “called” to, that God has sovereignly determined—which we need to discern and (ideally) to obey.

So widespread in evangelical Christianity is this idea of “finding our calling” that you may be surprised I’m even asking it as a question. Surely, you may think, the answer is obvious: yes, we must have.    

So where does the idea come from? You may have heard preachers say that it’s a biblical truth derived from Jeremiah 29:11: “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” As a stand-alone verse that sounds great. God certainly doesn’t have plans to harm us or leave us without hope, and he does care about our future. But the first rule of biblical interpretation is to know what a verse was saying at the time, for the people to whom it was said, in its original context. Simply put, the “you” here was the people of Israel, not each and every one of us as individuals. God was speaking into their story at that time, not into everyone’s stories for all time. The context was Israel in exile, in Babylon. The “plans” were a promise to restore Israel to its homeland. It was fulfilled, but not until 70 years later. The verse has nothing to do with divinely crafted personal life plans for individuals today (still less making Christians financially rich).  

The idea of “finding and following our calling” really comes from Calvinism, which has a significant influence on conservative evangelical thinking (though most evangelicals are unaware of that). Calvinism has several distinctive theological beliefs; the one that concerns us here—maybe we’ll address the others later—is “meticulous sovereignty,” which basically says that God is in control of every single thing that happens in this world and in everyone’s lives. He determines what happens (even the bad, or apparently bad), because as Almighty God he is perfect and he knows best. Nothing happens, say Calvinists, not even the minutiae, without God either making it happen or permitting it. And they will roll out proof texts to support that (Ephesians 2:10 could be read that way).

The idea that “God is in complete control” of every single action and event, despite what we see happening around us, can be comforting. It also “fits” with the idea of God being all-powerful (an all-powerful God who knows best in everything would surely want to design human affairs in such a way that he exercised that control . . . would he not?).

But it will also be obvious that Calvinists can’t have their deterministic cake and eat it; they can’t give God the credit for all the good things whilst denying that he’s the author of every war, genocide, rape, murder, and child abuse. Control means control, does it not? Committed Calvinists will indeed give God that “credit” and simply accept it.      

If we apply this Calvinist way of thinking to our question, then of course God must have a detailed personal plan for each person’s life—a “Plan A” decided in advance. Inevitably, as flawed human beings, we would have no say in the matter, because only God knows what’s best for us. Which in turn puts the onus on us to find that plan—to discern it and not miss it—for who knows what the adverse consequences might be? Although . . . if we follow through on the Calvinist logic, we really can’t miss it, can we? If God controls everything to that degree, he must have been controlling our “missing it” as well.

Hmmm . . . Do you see some of the problems with meticulous sovereignty?  

One of those problems is that many non-Christians would say—and some Christians might also be brave enough to say, at least privately—that this God sounds like a bit of a control freak. In a human context that would be called manipulative; abusive, even. Does “God knows best for everyone” get the Calvinist doctrine off the hook here? It might, were it not for the very many bad things that happen in people’s lives (bad to most people’s ways of thinking, at least) that surely God cannot have deliberately caused. It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask whether Jesus would deliberately cause or allow bad things to happen to people (the Gospels certainly don’t seem to reflect him doing that).               

None of this is to say the opposite is true: that God has no plans and purposes for anyone’s life. We’re not saying that he’s not in control of anything; that we’re on our own until Jesus returns. Of course not. But navigating where the balance lies is not simple. It’s easy to default to a kind of “meticulous sovereignty-lite” (which I think is what many evangelicals do in practice, without articulating it like that).

The other source of the idea is the clear examples of personal calling that we see in Scripture. Abraham, Moses, Jesus’ disciples, and the Apostle Paul are examples that spring to mind. But there are a couple of problems with making these examples normative (in other words, reflecting not only how it was for those individuals but also how it’s supposed to be for everyone). The first problem is that in Scripture we don’t see many people “called” in that way. It’s not “the norm,” let alone normative. The second problem is the way that “calling” is spoken of in the New Testament:   

1.        In the letters, it’s mostly calling people to faith in Jesus—called to become a Christian;

2.        It’s also used in relation to eternal destiny—our heaven-ward calling; and

3.        When the Apostle Peter says, “To this you were called,” he’s speaking about following the example of Jesus in how we live and behave.  

The ministry of an apostle is the only context in which the word calling is used in the way we’re thinking of it here. Granted, it may not be inappropriate to extend the idea to other forms of Christian ministry today when a person has a strong sense that this is what God is asking of them, but there don’t seem to be any strong biblical grounds for extending the idea to absolutely everyone and everything.

In the patriarchal society of the ancient world, the paterfamilias—the male head of a family, clan, or tribe—did indeed exercise virtually absolute control over people’s lives; to an astonishing degree by modern standards. But rather than assuming that ancient world model to be timelessly “biblical,” should we not rather look at how we understand best practice parenting today? As parents, we have aspirations for our children, and we want to support and encourage them to be the best they can be; to follow their hearts and dreams. If that means wanting to take on a role in the family business, then wonderful—we’d surely love to have them involved. But we’ll support them and help them be their best and most fulfilled in whatever they decide. I’m tempted to reference Jesus citing the best human parenting as reflective of God the Father’s “parenting”—in a kind of “How much more will your heavenly Father?” way (Matthew 7:11; Luke 11:13)—but that may be a stretch, hermeneutically.   

When we ask God what he wants us to do in life—what our “calling” is—I think his first response is along the lines, “I’m delighted that you ask. What would you like to do? What part would you be excited to play in my kingdom? What do you have a heart and a passion for? What do you have skills for? I’ve got a thousand ways in which you can contribute to my plans and purposes in this world. Let’s chat it through.”

Put like that, the idea of a “Plan A” that must not be missed (at our eternal peril) quickly falls away.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to serve God in our lives in whatever ways he would like. He wants the best for us, and we want to give him our best—perfect. And there’s nothing wrong with asking him to guide us—we should do that. But none of that is about a divinely crafted personal life plan written on tablets of stone before the foundation of the world. God speaks and guides in an interactive “fatherly” way, not a dictatorial, controlling way.

Beware acting on a “prophetic word” in isolation. Let it be confirming, rather than directing—the icing on the cake, not the whole cake. Make sure to bring wisdom into the mix (an underrated spiritual gift that God offers in abundance—James 1:5).

Finally, if you’re concerned that if God is not “in control” in the way that Calvinists say he is, then his standing as Almighty God is diminished, that’s unwarranted. For God to choose not to exercise meticulous control over everyone’s lives, but instead to grant a very significant level of free will (or, autonomy), is not at all a measure of divine weakness. It’s the action of an all-powerful God who has sovereignly chosen to do that.

The obvious example of God choosing voluntary self-limitation for the sake of his relationship with us is Jesus the eternal Son laying down his divine sovereignty in the incarnation. Theologically, this is called kenosis—a voluntary laying down (literally, “emptying” himself) of everything to do with divinity that would be incompatible with full humanity. Philippians 2:6–8 are the key verses.     

Let’s be clear: God is most certainly in control as respects the main waypoints in the divine-human story as it unfolds through history. He has, and will continue to, determine everything he has chosen to determine—for example, when Jesus came (Romans 5:6), and when will be the end of this present age (Acts 1:7). He doesn’t have to control every single little thing in everyone’s life to prove how all-powerful he is.  

I believe the same is true on a smaller scale for the main waypoints in our life stories. But rather like with sat nav (or at least, when I follow sat nav), there’s a fair bit of “rerouting” that goes on, as we miss a turn or lose the signal! But I think God’s OK with that—I think he likes living life with us, in real time. It’s a familial relationship, it’s not “command and control.”