language in them, you’ll increase
your capacity to discern his love
language in you. This back-and-forth
naming process will help you get a
clearer sense of your vocational love
language.
As you engage these questions,
keep an open mind. If God speaks
an infinite number of languages,
then your love language might
be very distinctive. Consider all of
the different workers God speaks
through in the Bible: kings, managers,
poets, shepherds, metalworkers,
stonemasons, homebuilders, judges,
laborers, farmers, jewel merchants,
fishermen, potters, warriors, landlords,
and vineyard owners (to name a
few). Take note that every prophet,
priest, and leader through whom
God spoke in the Scriptures was a
different person and therefore had a
unique vocational love language!
Once you think you’ve identified
your primary vocational love
language, lean into it and ask God
to help you master it. Pray that the
Holy Spirit opens your eyes to God’s
on-the-job presence and your ears
to his voice. Ask God to take those
moments of flow and fill them with
an increased awareness of how your
vocational way images his, filling your
work with an increased sense of the
sacred. Meet God through the work
you do. Experience his vocational
presence.
54 Solutions
You are made to know God in all
that you do; including the 40 percent
of your life you spend working. God
is more present there than you know.
And I think he wants you to know that.
John Van Sloten is a pastor in Calgary,
Alberta. He is the author of The Day
Metallica Came to Church: Searching for
the Everywhere God in Everything. He’s
preached sermons on dozens of different
jobs and has been the recipient of several
John Templeton Foundation grants for
preaching science. His new book, Every Job
a Parable: What Walmart Greeters, Nurses,
and Astronauts Tell Us about God, released
from NavPress on June 20, 2017.