Often in our attempts to unearth our vocation—that call with the call that demands our unique response—we go searching through our past or in the depths of our hearts. Both, as we learned on Sunday, are necessary tools for digging up our God-designed work. Yet neither are the place we’ll find our calling.
While reflection and contemplation—in both solitude and in community—help us clarify our calling, our vocation, that thing which we are made, for which we are “reverently set apart,” is always discovered in “the land,” in the soil of everyday life. The good for which we give our life is never an abstraction or generalization, but a particular: some specific problem, some specified activity, some distinct injustice, some peculiar place, some unique person or peoples which call out “to the deepest level of your nature…down in the substrate…and demand an active response.” A particular call that arises in the course of a committed life, at least that’s how the Psalmist describes it,
Trust in LORD and DO GOOD; DWELL IN THE LAND and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. COMMIT YOUR WAY to the LORD; trust him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light…(Psalm 37:3-6)
So today, let us commit our way to the LORD together. To “do good” as we dwell in the land, ever listening for our particular call.
Father, into your hands we commit our day. We commit today, in Your strength and grace, to do good in whatever way is required of us in our homes, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in the unexpected places and persons You lead us. We commit today, in the life of Jesus, to trust and delight in You. Father, into your hands we commit our spirit!