CHAPTER 1

What Is "Call" for the Christian?

... let each of you lead the life ... to which God called you.–1 Cor. 7:17

People call us to get our attention, to make contactwith us, to draw us closer to them. So it is with God.A call may come as a gradual dawning of God's purposefor our lives. It can involve an accelerating sense ofinner direction. It can emerge through a gnawingfeeling that we need to do a specific thing. On occasion,it can burst forth as a sudden awareness of a paththat God would have us take. Call may be emphaticand unmistakable, or it may be obscure and subtle. Inwhatever way call is experienced, through the centuriesGod has chosen to speak to us and bids us to listen. "Iwill instruct you and teach you the way you should go;I will counsel you with my eye upon you" (Ps. 32:8).

God calls us on many levels: God calls creation, callsthe Church, calls my congregation, and calls me,today, to reach me where I am now. God calls theentirety of my life. And at specific times and places,God calls me to particular actions.

God calls each of us. There are a variety of calls, andno one call is inherently better or higher than anyother. The call of a priest, monk, or nun, howeversacred, is, in and of itself, not superior to the call of anarchitect designing a house, a mechanic repairing acar, or a nurse caring for the sick. It is our faithfulnessto God and not our station in life that honors a call.

We need to look beneath external facts to determinea call. For example, two men might be wrestling withwhat seems to be the same question: whether or notto volunteer at a breakfast program for homelesspeople. For one, the call might turn out to be to stayhome and spend some much-needed time with hischildren. For the other, the call might be to work atthe breakfast program and help his family develop asense of supporting him in service to others.

God speaks to us through the language of everydayevents. Each new moment of life, each new situation,the present condition of a person or community,of events, time, place, people, and circumstances—allhold clues to God's call. Thus, we often find our callsin the facts, circumstances, and concrete experiencesof daily life.

Sometimes call comes through what is imposed onus. Teresa of Avila, for instance, wrote several booksbecause her confessors told her to. Today, with hindsight,we can recognize that through her obedienceshe was honoring God's call. Similarly, DietrichBonhoeffer found in prison a call to minister to otherswho were imprisoned.

Any matter, large or small, may relate to our call.A call could encompass a decision about whetherto take a new job, go back to school, volunteer at ashelter. A call could draw us to a personal relationshipin a new or different way. A call could focus onwhether to resist paying taxes as a form of protestor whether to sell all our belongings and move toCentral America. A call may not be so much a callto "do" as to "be." An active man may become sickand unable to do what he has done before; yet whilehe may not be called to be sick, he may be calledin sickness to reflect God's presence and love in anew way. So call should be understood in the widest,most inclusive sense, to encompass what we do andwho we are.

This is not to say that in every decision there is a callfrom God or that God is always giving us guidanceregarding every question we face. Sometimes we needto act based upon our assessment of what is good—weneed to make a decision. In such a situation, elevatingthe decision to a call from God will not make it one.

On the other hand, because a matter seems unimportantdoes not foreclose a call from God. As with God'scall to Moses, the desire to minister at a soup kitchenor as a school volunteer can burn brightly with thefire of God's call.

A call might lead us to pursue a certain occupationor career, as a person who feels called to help othersin turmoil might become a pastoral counselor. Quiteoften a call becomes visible in a specific job, task, orendeavor. But a call can never be reduced to suchactivities. The same counselor may also be calledto care for family, friends, and community as well asclients and thus must balance all of these in order to befaithful to the call. In a world that puts much emphasison success, a too-narrow concern with occupation orcareer can make us deaf to our calls.

We may be called beyond ordinary occupations—to beprophets. A prophet does not have to be a Moses ora Jeremiah. Amos, for example, was a shepherd wholeft his flock to become a prophet in Israel, returninghome when his years of prophesying came to an end.So, too, any one of us may be called to a propheticrole at a specific time and place for a specific issue.

Not only is every call unique, but the hearing of everycall is unique also. One sign that God may be calling is acertain restlessness, a certain dissatisfaction with thingsas they are. Other signs of God's call may be a sense oflonging, yearning, or wondering; a feeling of being ata crossroads; a sense that something is happening inone's life, that one is wrestling with an issue or decision;a sense of being in a time of transition; or a series ofcircumstances that draw one into a specific issue.

While role models are helpful, we are not calledto copy other people. Rather, we are to becomefully the people God created us to be, living ourown lives in response to our own calls—as Jesuslived out his life faithful to God's call for him. Soit is that hearing one's call is akin to discoveringone's self.

Even when a need exists and we are well qualifiedto meet it, we are not necessarily called to respondto it. Something may seem logical for us to do,but that does not mean that God calls us to do it.In ordinary circumstances, people analyze facts inorder to come to a conclusion. While this is a usefulexercise, it is not...