Calling
A reflection on vocational calling, written for Loma Linda University School of Medicine
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.
On vocation: “It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-Interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done.”
-Frederick Buechner, originally published in Wishful Thinking
Her smile radiates joy when she is holding our son and he responds in kind. Everything she does for him is graced with love, whether carefully feeding Emmett our pureed pears or taking him in her arms after work. At times, my wife’s love for our son seems boundless, bringing him to life and filling our home with laughter.
While my wife has multiple callings, she would say it was the calling to motherhood which has given her the greatest joy, though she did not anticipate this before the arrival of our son. I could not anticipate the love I would have for Emmett and the ways my relationship with him would fill me. Callings can appear in unexpected places.
For some, a calling is received like a voice from the sky or a bolt of lightning at one’s feet. For others it constitutes a sense of purpose, quiet yet persistent, driving one onward, a constant reminder of one’s meaning in life. For still others it is an object of passion. Most of us have multiple callings, touching on different realms of life. I mentioned my wife’s relational calling with my son, but she also has vocational callings, as do many of us. Ultimately, I think calling is that to which God is drawing us. The manner in which He draws us is just as unique as we are. Frederick Buechner did a wonderful job of describing vocational calling and I wanted to focus on one particular phrase: “There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Super-ego, or Self-Interest.”
Those of us in the medical profession (or soon to be) are not immune to the myriad voices which Buechner mentions. Frankly, they can be deafening. We are pulled in the directions of wealth or prestige (or even the desire to “make a difference”) and somewhere along the way we lose touch with our initial calling, to heal the sick and love with every part of ourselves, which was a response to God’s greater call on our lives. Unfortunately, our true vocational calling is often quieter than the voice of its imposters. How do we navigate this? I am reminded of the greatest commandments outlined by Christ, the call to love God and the call to love our neighbor. Those callings are clear. Yet God gives us autonomy in how we answer these callings. Much has been written on the doctor-patient relationship and the importance of making medical decisions jointly. God does this with our lives, making us partners, and allowing us creativity and spontaneity as we seek to serve Him. We live our lives not so much as the recitation of God’s dictation but as the creative, individual response to a gracious and loving God. His call is unique and our response to it is as well. Yet His call to love Him and those around us is universal. I think this is beautiful. We tend to get caught in the details of God’s call: “I know you want me to be a doctor, but what kind of doctor?” or “I know you want me to serve the poor, but how do you want me to serve them?” I ask these questions all the time! Yet I wonder if those questions sound similar to my wife and I asking God “I know you want us to love Emmett, but how, specifically?” Such a question comes from a good place, but it ignores the agency which God has given us. Perhaps a better request would be, “Give us wisdom as we try to love Emmett as you love him.” In reflecting on this, I hope that you may be reminded of your agency as God’s beloved as you respond to God’s often quiet call upon your life.