What Is Your Calling in Life?

By Jeffrey A. Thompson

• His first night at BYU he was feeling lonely so he went for a walk around campus and looking at all of the beautiful building he thought of all the great learning there was to be done in these buildings
• This is when he knew what he wanted to do for his career.
• What is your calling in life? If you don’t know yet, how will you find out?
• We need to explore what we mean by a “calling in life” to see whether the idea fits within the framework of the restored gospel. 
• The very roots of the idea of a professional calling are distinctly religious
• The world still embraces the notion of a professional calling, but it has almost entirely abandoned the spiritual roots of the idea. 
• “You might have a calling if you are lucky, or you might not.” To dispel this heresy, let’s look at a scripture I use as the theme for many of my classes. You have heard it many times, but I’d like to point out something that you may have missed. In D&C 58:27, the Lord asks His children to “be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness.”
• After the Lord charges us to anxiously pursue good causes, the next verse begins: “For the power is in them” (D&C 58:28). Think about that. The Lord hasn’t just told you to pursue good causes, He has equipped you with power to do so. You—you personally—are full of divine capacities to do good that you probably don’t even fully appreciate. These verses testify that you are not part of a lottery system for life callings. You have a calling in life: to pursue good causes. And you have been given power to do just that.
• Anxiety - “You have to find your one true calling in order to be fulfilled.”
• D&C 46 enumerates many spiritual gifts that you might have been given—gifts of teaching, healing, or language. Some of these gifts don’t seem particularly relevant to choosing a profession

Verses 11 and 12 read:

For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God.

To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby.

• Elder Bruce R. McConkie said that “spiritual gifts are endless in number and infinite in variety” (Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985], 371). 

• finding our calling in life involves the same process as discovering our spiritual gifts. Elder Robert D. Hales has provided some insight on this process:

To find the gifts we have been given, we must pray and fast. . . . I urge you each to discover your gifts and to seek after those that will bring direction to your life’s work and that will further the work of heaven. [Robert D. Hales, “Gifts of the Spirit,” Ensign, February 2002, 16]

• If you exercise faith in the Lord, follow His spirit, and seek to amplify your gifts, you will be led gradually to a place where you are well equipped to serve. 

• “When you find your calling, work will be bliss.” 

• “Finding a calling means that the world will take notice.” If you expect the world to loudly applaud your calling in life, you may be disappointed. 

• If you find your calling leads you to work that is less than glamorous, take heed to what John Calvin said: “No task will be so sordid and base . . . that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight” (quoted in Hardy, The Fabric of This World, 90; also in John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960], 3.10.6, 725). 

• “Meaningfulness in life is to be found at work.” This idea has become a foundational doctrine of the world. Many people identify themselves primarily by their professions.
• Our worthwhile work can indeed give us a sense of meaning. But the idea that meaning comes primarily from our work entirely misses the point, because it focuses on the self.