Neighbors pass by my patch of daffodils; some thank me. I gleam. This is my calling. What? Well, one expression of my calling anyway.
I used to read this poem to my children:
She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
“Winter is dead.” 1
Together we would whisper the last line, Winter…is…dead. Even the daffodil has a calling.
But we are more than daffodils. What is your calling? Calling is commonly understood as a specific job. But suppose you are a CPA, and MD, an EMT, or an XYZ: You are plopped down in a South American rain forest. What would you do? Who would you be? God has made you and overseen your life with purpose in mind for this time in history. How would that be lived out on a jungle floor? To avoid the proverbial identity crisis in such circumstances, the notion of calling requires thinking broadly about identity, about who you are made to be.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and scholar, penned these words before dying as a martyr:
Who am I? This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine! 2
Bonhoeffer’s life epitomizes the general call to discipleship and servanthood. To live is Christ…. Broadly, our identity as called people is to walk in the good works prepared for us.3 This aspect of calling is not optional, for without Him we can do nothing. One parable intensifies the urgent call to live faithfully in His calling:
Who then is the faithful and sensible servant whom his master put in charge of his household to give others their food at the proper time? Well, he is fortunate if his master finds him doing that duty on his return! Believe me, he will promote him to look after all his property. But if he should be a bad servant who says to himself, ‘My master takes his time about returning’, and should begin to beat his fellow-servants and eat and drink with drunkards, that servant’s master will return suddenly and unexpectedly, and will punish him severely and send him off to share the penalty of the unfaithful—to his bitter sorrow and regret! 4
Scripture uses the word ‘calling’ in two ways: it encompasses …both the initial call to salvation and the ongoing call to live a life worthy of that calling.5 I suggest that our general and personal callings may transcend, to some degree, location and raw material.
We once lived in a town where I felt dead inside, more like someone was trying to bury me. It wasn’t all the town’s fault, and I tried to create life as much as possible. I worked and worked, though not according to my “gifts” but with whatever my hands found to do. Later, I got dropped in a place I love, for the past 30-plus years. Did my calling change? No, the same general call and required faithfulness remained. The expressions of personal calling broadened. Looking back, the isolation and threats to my sanity comprised the soil structure for growing deep roots. What I experienced as a putrid pond turned out to be deep and living water.
Location matters but does not determine, and sometimes clarifies, our callings. Moses had a stick and a speech impediment. Abigail had poise, a penchant for negotiation and a drunk for a husband. Christ Jesus knew His calling and lived it perfectly for the redemption of the world. Who am I, then, to balk if He calls me to a place of secret servanthood? Our callings are still holy, do good for us and our neighbors, and give glory even when couched in fiery suffering or the seemingly incurable wound.
As for raw materials, we don’t own anything. Poof goes the justification that making money matters most. Of course, money is a factor: Whoever will not work will not eat. But money cannot define our calling or else we follow the money, not the Savior. We are called to stewardship, not control. Tending not mastering. Dominion not domination. Servanthood not power. Leading not lording.
The challenge is great, and we can’t go it alone. We need help and the helping community of others to discern Christ’s callings and various stewardship:
Now to him who by his power within us is able to do far more than we ever dare to ask or
imagine—to him be glory in the Church through Jesus Christ for ever and ever, amen!6
Though our life callings are carried out in the context of the church, our fellows and family, this does not mean that spiritual work, church work, is more valuable than other kinds of work. Growing daffodils in a front garden is not superfluous! It is tempting to split sacred and secular, faith and flowers. But such a division violates creation and redemption, and is a travesty of the gospel, the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. We have been searched out, pursued and found as whole people, body and soul, and what we are called to be and do will exhibit and express the cohesive embodiment of truth and grace. All God’s callings are imbued with the dignity of work and its implements: even horse bells and cooking pots6.or a new mother buttoning a tiny button. Work is worship. And all work began in a garden. Each of us uniquely fills a spot on the earth for a time. Our gifts, natural talents, spiritual gifts, location, family background, experiences, and desires cluster to reveal a unique call, a letter written to the world: Look at the goodness, truth and beauty of the triune God through me, my fellows and family!
So, we live out our calling in context: our location, time in history, gifts, talents, experiences, background. And we live out our calling in a current of grace in a state of affairs—our health, wealth or poverty, relationships, domicile, relationship circle, family background, gifts and talents, education, age and stage. We are privileged in our time to think specifically and try to discern what God made us for. We are not hunter-gatherers. And yet, if suddenly I were reduced to that state, my identity and calling would be the same as it is living in relative wealth and a sophisticated culture. We will still hear the summons, “Follow me.”
And, like our first parents tending the garden or Moses overseeing the temple dress and decor, we follow him gloriously and beautifully (see Zech. 28:2-40). We are called to push against ugly and evil. Jonathan Rogers captures this notion:
Your little patch of ground is a blessing to the people who pass through, and that is gratifying.
But just as importantly, you get to live there. You get to live on a patch of ground that looks a
little bit more like the world you want to live in. 8
Apply that wisdom in everything your hands find to do. The cross–ugly, defiled, hell and evil concentrated in one dreadful act–makes that possible. The daffodils remind us.
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1 A.A. Milne, Now We Are Six
2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
3 Ephesians 2:10
4 Matthew 24: 45-52 (JB Phillips); see also Deuteronomy 8:18
5 https://biblehub.com/greek/2821.htm,
6 Eph. 3:20, 21 (JB Phillips)
7 Zech. 14:20
8 Jonathan Rogers, The Habit Weekly, accessed March 4, 2025.