If You Can Find Your Calling

Calling and Purpose
He’s never spoken audibly to me.
God calls me and moves me by my interests.
There is something profound to me about doing what feels easy and natural.
Naval Ravikant, not a Christian, but a wise man, once said the secret to finding the work you should be doing is to know what feels like play to you but looks like work to others.
This is a great competitive advantage. 
If you’re thinking I’ve written about this before, you’re right. But it’s important enough to recycle the idea, because I believe it now more than ever.
For the last month, I’ve not done much besides sit on the couch reclining a broken ankle. It’s been fine, because all I do all day on this couch is play.
What an absolute blessing!
For a living, I…

• Write (ghostwriting books and writing on Substack)

• Coach writers

• Pastor a brand new church

• Direct the local homeschool choir

• And, as a volunteer, I’m privileged to help build a dad mentoring program at our local Pregnancy Resource Center.

Every single one of these things is creative, amazing fun for me and deeply rewarding. I feel like a man of leisure just playing around all the time.
You may see my daily word count and think, “I wouldn’t want to write 5000 words a day.” That’s you. I probably wouldn’t want to do what you do so effortlessly.
Am I saying there is never anything hard about my work? No, I’m not saying that. But think about your favorite video game. You like it, because on some level, it is hard. It is a challenge. That’s part of the fun.
But that’s work, and what I’m really thinking about here goes beyond work. It goes to who you are becoming.
Your interests are a beacon. You hear about a book, and you just know you have to read it. When you do, you devour it and start looking for another one from the same author.
Go with that when it happens. Dive as deeply as you want, even if it feels unrelated to your current work. At some point, your interests will converge into this incredible, unique person that you have become. You’ll have a particular set of skills/knowledge.
And the cool thing is, you’ve not arrived, you’re still going; you’re still growing.
I shudder to think who I’ll be in 10 years. I shudder, because I like who I am now, and part of me worries about messing that up. But that’s a silly worry.
God is shaping you and me, and this is how He does it.
But I think people assume God shapes us in another way. I notice that people start out assuming the worst about themselves, that everything needs to change.
This makes sense, in a way, because we have a fallen nature and require an alien righteousness that is from Christ.
But they assume that, even if they are saved, God is deeply unhappy with them and they “hear His voice,” giving directives. These are not fun, interesting directives. They tend to be things that people know will be hard, because that’s how they think God calls us to live, by discipline.
Well, sometimes…
I do sometimes have to discipline myself. Let me explain…
I get into something, because I am interested enough to be obsessed with it.
It gets boring when I’ve learned or done all I am meant to learn or do, so I typically move on to something else, probably with a certain level of mastery at the old thing.
But not always. We should not always move on from what we were obsessed about, from what felt like play before, but now feels like work.
When should we not move on? When should we accept the discipline of work?
When we believe something is important enough to what is a key part of our existence.
For instance: You met someone once, and you fell madly in love. No one had to remind you to spend time together, to show affection, to be sweet. You were deeply wired and emotionally driven to do so.
You got married.10 years later, you weren’t as obsessed with this person; they were just a part of your life, a part of you. You are not obsessed with your own body parts (unless they are broken!). They’re just faithfully there and utterly necessary to your well-being.
But your marriage counselor told you that you and your spouse need to be doing some of the things you did when you were first dating in order to enjoy this marriage to the fullest. You have to discipline yourself to do that.
It’s worth it!
But notice something. This is the kind of “discipline” that moves your emotional level. You may not feel attracted to the person in a particular moment, but when you start acting like you are, you start to feel it: passion, thrill, romance…unlocked by discipline. Was it work? Kind of.
The other area this applies for me is my faith. The journey is very similar to marriage.
Step 1, discover Jesus, fall deeply in love and get obsessed about the Bible.
Step 2, having learned all the major facts, find your interest is waning.
Step 3, develop spiritual disciplines to cultivate faith and the relationship with Jesus.
Step 4, feel it.
Repeat.
And then in my work it happens all the time as well. Maybe I feel a little bored with it. I have to look at my life and figure out whether this is a signal to do something else, or it’s just time to dig in a little bit to discipline.
Writing this post this morning is easy and fun. Later, I’ll be writing someone else’s book and it will be a little less fun.
But co-writing other people’s book dreams into existence is something I’m still called to do in this season, and it is truly rewarding. And getting paid well to do it comes with a certain level of satisfaction that can’t be ignored.
When it gets hard, I dig into discipline.
But some people gauge whether something is from God by how hard it is. They think, “That sounds awful—must be God.” Not everything God asks of us will drive us to the Garden of Gethsemane.
I’ll stop here with this: What are you interested in? See what happens if you get a little obsessed and start pulling threads. It may lead to mastery and a new level of creative productivity. It may be God’s call on your life.
At the same time, what did you used to be interested in that now feels a little hard? Be honest and discern if this means it’s about time to move into the next thing, or is it time to apply discipline to reach the next level?
God bless you.