Rather than something we choose or decide, our vocation—like our unique creation—is an incredible gift from God. In calling us, God has graced us “according to the measure of Christ’s gift,” (Ephesians 4:7) and not, as we would expect, by the measure of our gifts.

And Christ’s gift cannot be measured, Paul writes, for we are “blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing” and share in “the riches of [God’s] glorious inheritance among the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:3; 18-19).

To root our understanding of vocation in God’s own abundance, then we see what a mistake it is to think about vocation simply as finding our talents and figuring out what to do with them. Rather and more fully, it is discovering and living out of the infinite and gratuitous abundance of God. In this way, we will begin to discover, occasionally like a flash of lightning, but more often haltingly and by fits and starts, what we are called to do in our lives.

Furthermore, since the church is missional by its very nature, then the life and calling of every Christian person is fundamentally missional. This means that regardless of our “occupation” we all have the same “vocation.” Jesus said, “You will be my witness” (Acts 1:8).

Darrell Guder writes, “Witness is not merely one of the several things that Christians are called to do. Witness is the comprehensive definition of what a Christian is.”

In short, everything that the Christian community is and does relates, either obediently or disobediently, to our vocation – You will be my witness.

Can I get a witness?