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.... The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’ s deep hunger meet.” 3 We can’ t know what the world most needs without engaging the world. It’ s tempting to spend our lives on our screens, learning about the world in bitesize snippets. It’ s also easy to see suffering around us and then ignore it as the priest and Levite did the naked and beaten man they passed on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho( Luke 10:30- 32). But we must pay attention. We must listen to the world that groans for redemption( Romans 8:18-23). In the world’ s cries, even in our suffering, we may discern a calling to be a messenger of hope.
Discernment Amid Everyday Faithfulness If we closely examine the stories of those who received specific callings in Scripture, we
can see that the calling rarely happened in the context of a silent retreat or mountaintop experience. Rather, those callings often came to people in the midst of their mundane lives. God called Abram to leave Haran and journey to the Promised Land( Genesis 12:1). Yet the Bible tells us nothing about Abram’ s circumstances. For all we know, he was doing what nomads of the ancient Near East did day in and day out. Yes, God spoke to Moses from a burning bush and called him to return to Egypt to lead God’ s people out of slavery. But Exodus 3 does not begin with the words,“ Now Moses was sitting in the middle of nowhere waiting on a word from the Lord.” Instead it begins,“ Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law”( Exodus 3:1). God called Moses while he was being a shepherd.
Samuel was trying to get a good night’ s sleep( 1 Samuel 3:3). Saul was looking for
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