Vocation

   I've been desperately craving a vocation - a life-call to a certain work, career, or mission - for the past ten to fifteen years. At some point in my early adulthood I went from being free, curious, and hopeful about my vocation to being anxious and distressed about not having one.
   Why not just pick a career, right?! I haven't been able to! Mysteriously that has always felt really really wrong, like a short-cut, like cheating, like a lack of faith. 
   God is supposed to tell me what to do, and if She hasn't told me yet, then I shouldn't presume to pick for myself. Where in the world did I get this notion? 
   My parents didn't teach me. Our church didn't teach this. The Bible talks plenty about call, but that's a call to follow God, prophetic words and actions, starting nations, saving the world and so forth, not a 9-5 job.
   I've tried to talk myself out of it. "My vocation is to follow Jesus, and I can do that just as well working in accounting or horticulture." "Vocation as 'career' is just a capitalist take on religious commitment."
   I've sought out advice, and found some very good wisdom. From what I've learned at Richmond Hill, vocational discernment usually involves four overlapping principles, explored in solitude and in discussion with friends.

1. Play to your strengths. Do what you're good at. God gave you talents so that you could serve with them.
2. Follow your heart. Do what you love. God gave you passions and wants you to pursue them.
3. Answer the call. Respond to the needs around you. God calls you in the context of your community.
4. Trial and error. Examine your past experience. What works for you? What doesn't? If you hate your job, well, at least you've learned what you don't like.

   And sometimes, but not usually, God will spell out your career path, in a vision, a voice, through another person, etc.. No one has ever told me that I should expect God to do this for me, but somehow I've fixed this, or God's fixed this, way down deep in my soul. As a four on the Enneagram, maybe this is simply a product of my need to feel one-of-a-kind, hand-picked, the lonely romantic hero.
   Also, those four overlapping principles haven't worked very well for me. I swear, I've tried!

1. I don't have clear, stand-out strengths. In school I did fine in all subjects, but I wasn't exceptional at anything. My work record has been the same.
2. I don't have clear, stand-out passions. I like lots of things, but I've never been consistently dedicated to an activity, or issue, or subject.
3. This has worked for me, a little. But still I haven't been able to plug in, heart and soul.
4. I guess this step continues to help.