by Debra Farrington

I remember the phone call distinctly. It came on January 2 at 9:02 in the morning, just moments after the bookstore that I managed had opened for business. The voice on the other end was a friend in publishing: "We’d like to talk to you about heading up our editorial program," he said. "I don’t know anything about publishing," I responded. I was a bookseller and had been for almost 20 years. Besides, I was happy where I was. But my friend didn’t give up. "Just think about it," he said. "We’ll talk again in a few days."

To shorten the story, I refused for three months to take the position — until the last moment — when I gave up, took the job, and moved all the way across the country to a new place where I knew almost no one. I went because I felt called to go. I had the strongest sense that these people needed my skills and that they could teach me a great deal as well. But more than anything, I went because I sensed God wanted me there.

Everything — except my furniture, my car, and my cat — was entirely new to me, and my first year in that position was easily one of the loneliest, most difficult of my life. But, over time, my sense that the company and I needed each other proved correct. I spent eight years there, learning and teaching, before God called me in new directions. In 2005, I got married and left full–time employment to make time to write, speak, and lead retreats. I also became a step–mother, a totally new role for me. Though I’d never claim to be the spitting image of faithfulness to my sense of vocation, I’m giving it my best shot.

I have a vocation?
Does it surprise you to see that word vocation used of a layperson — of me, of you? Since the Middle Ages, the term vocation has been used primarily for people who were or planned to be ordained for service to God. We seemed to have forgotten that the Bible didn’t use it that way. Call (or calling) and vocation are the same words in Old Testament texts, and God had no problem at all calling on ordinary people to serve as God’s hands and feet. In the New Testament, the words vocation or call usually referred to those who had accepted a new life in Christ, adopting a Christian way of life. What mattered was that their life reflected Christian values (1 Peter 2:9–17); their occupation was of no consequence.

Today we think of the word vocation as being a combination of these: Christian values and our occupational or life choices. We are called to certain obligations or professions, and we are called to boldly and faithfully live in a way that shows others what it means to be a Christian. Every one of us has a vocation: God calls all of us — not just clergy — to take a part in bringing God’s dreams for the world to fruition. For our part, we are required to listen for the call and act faithfully in response.

Can you hear me now?
I’ve long thought that God could be clearer about our choice of vocation. An e-mail would be good — or a letter if God wants to make sure my new spam–killer doesn’t jettison the e–mail. I’d be even happier with a phone call, but I often wonder if God feels like the guy in the cell phone commercials who keeps asking, "Can you hear me now?" Figuring out what God is calling us to do, unfortunately, takes a bit of work. Listening for God’s call involves keeping our eyes, ears, and hearts wide open as we pray, study, observe, and reflect — the keys to discerning our vocation.

Pray.
Prayer is one of the most important ways of listening for God’s call to us. "Ask, and it will be given you," we read in Matthew 7:7. Use some of your prayer time to ask what God needs you to do, and try to keep your own heart open to whatever answer you receive.

Study.
Continue to discover God’s words and ways through the Bible, books, music, movies, and theater. We are given many ways to interpret God’s work in the world. We sometimes try to limit God’s ability to speak to us by insisting that God speak only through the Bible, but God can speak through anything — even a burning bush. God usually speaks to me in the most unexpected times and places. The more broadly we study and practice seeing God at work in everything around us, the better listeners we’re likely to be.

Pay attention to your gifts.
They are clues to God’s expectations of you. What do you love most to do? Where are the places you enjoy going? Who are the people you like to visit? Which of your skills is more fun to use? In all likelihood, God gave you some or all of these gifts for a reason.

Heed your body’s wisdom.
Our bodies often feel what’s right (or not) long before our head or heart knows. That sensation of peacefulness (and in some cases, the occasional butterfly in the stomach) may be confirmation of a clear sense of vocation.

Talk with others about your vocation.
Sometimes we’re the last to know — to sense our own calling or to recognize that we’re living it. If you’re not sure you recognize your calling, talk with a trusted friend, spiritual director, or clergy person.

These practices don’t work instantly, but when used faithfully over a period of time, they help us hear God more clearly. Then it’s time for bold action.

Responding in faith
"I’m not sure I want to practice discernment," the young woman told me. "I don’t want to go to Africa." She was a student in the summer seminary class I was teaching on discernment, and her comment was astute. She realized she wasn’t ready to be called out of her own comfort zone. A call that would take her halfway around the world scared her, and she was afraid she couldn’t be faithful to that kind of call. She was right to be concerned; God has few reservations about calling us out of our comfort zones. But just as often, God’s call results in smaller movements in our lives. Being faithful to that call — to our vocation — is a matter of tweaking our lives rather than wholesale changes.

Lydia’s story in Acts is a good example of a woman who responded faithfully to a call that required small but important changes. A wealthy woman, a dealer in expensive purple cloth, she heard Paul speak one day. "The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly," Acts 16:14 tells us, and she and her whole household were baptized. Scholars believe that Lydia’s life continued much as it had before she heard Paul, though she did began a church in her home in response to a sense of God’s presence and call in her life. The text in Acts tells us very little about her, but we do know that she considered faithfulness to be important. "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord," she told Paul, "come and stay at my house." And Paul, apparently judging her faithful, stayed in her home.

If we use Lydia as an example, a faithful response to God’s call doesn’t have to mean seismic shifts in our world. God wants us to choose work (paid or not) or a lifestyle that uses our God–given gifts to show others what a life in Christ looks like, even if we follow our call in mundane and ordinary ways. Our next–door neighbors or colleagues should wonder what fuels us when they look at how we live and what we produce. Others will see that the fruit of the Spirit seems to flow from what we do each day, that our efforts often result in spreading love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self–control (Galatians 5:22).

When our vocation brings out these gifts in the people and situations with which we interact, then we can be pretty sure we’re responding faithfully to God’s call, whether that’s halfway around the world, or in our own backyard playing with the kids.

Debra Farrington is a writer and the author of seven books of Christian spirituality. Her Web site is www.debrafarrington.com