Callings are hard to understand. They defy logic. When I felt a calling to become a pastor, it was contrary to anything else that I was considering. I had a successful career in finance, and by all rights I should have stayed on that track. There are days when I wish that I had — my bank account would thank me for it. But a call is powerful. I couldn’t get it out of my head, and I kept finding myself in situations that pulled me in the same direction. The books I read suddenly mentioned other people who seemed called. The people around me mentioned things that I had done that lined up well with pastoral work. I was talking to a friend and out of the blue they kiddingly said, “You should be a pastor.” It was a funny comment at the time, but it resonated with me in a new way.
Then I took some baby steps toward ministry, and it felt — I don’t know — just right. I kept getting messages from others and from within that this was the right path for me. Have you ever been to a new restaurant — one that was new to you, at least — and then started to see other branches of the same chain everywhere? It felt a little like that. I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen it before. It began to feel like something that I couldn’t not do.
It began to feel like something that I couldn’t not do.
There is a man named J. B. Mauney, who was the first man to get legitimately rich at bull riding. They called him the Dragonslayer. The Washington Post writes, “… he set the record for career prize money with more than $7.4 million and tied for most event victories on the Professional Bull Riders circuit with 32. But his real legacy, what made him the most popular draw in fringed chaps, was that he always chose the fiercest bull to ride, costing himself who knows how much more in money and titles.”
He knew from an early age that he was going to be a bull rider. At age 9, J.B. was riding the family steers and winning youth events in the Junior Southern Rodeo Association. He was just 13 when he got on his first small bull.
Like any bull rider, he had his share of injuries, including a collapsed lung from being gored and broken ribs and a lacerated liver from getting stomped. But nothing kept him away from bull riding until the day he was thrown from a bull called Arctic Assassin. As he got up, he said, “I think I broke my neck.” He would never ride again. Even now, he still manages a ranch that raises bulls and attends rodeos. He can’t rid himself of the calling.
Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.
— Erol Ozan
Figuring It Out
I met several people in college who knew that they wanted to be doctors from a young age, and that’s what they did. But not everyone knows so clearly what they want to do with their lives. They don’t yet hear a calling, or even have a hint.
Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I think it takes a while for some folks to find that intersection. When I was a boy I loved baseball, but … the world’s deep hunger?
Buechner talks about “Listening to your life,” and Parker Palmer says, “Let your life speak.” These are both ways of saying that we have to pay attention to the things that we are drawn to, the things that give us joy, the things that feel meaningful. Palmer writes, “I’ve come to understand vocation not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received—the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation doesn’t come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I’m not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be.”
Taking a walk can help. Just let your mind wander, rather than frustrating yourself trying to figure out what to do. I think we have to allow ourselves to take risks, to try new things.
I’ve been having this sense that I need to get better at Spanish. I’ve been exploring it, traveling a bit, and enjoying it. I don’t know if it is a calling, but it is at least a fun pastime. Maybe it will turn into something.
