Purpose and impact
The purpose of a hammer is to drive a nail into wood. The purpose of fertilizer is to make things grow. In both cases, the purpose has impact! The driven nail holds the piece of wood securely in place. The fertilizer makes plants grow. Purpose and calling are inter-related: Calling is the avenue by which your purpose, the impact of your life, is achieved.
Calling: Primary and Secondary
You answer Jesus’ call to follow him with the aim of entering into the the community of love enjoyed by the Triune God. This is the primary call common to all. As part of that community you, seeking to love as God loves, demonstrate the beauty and excellence of that love, in part, through the varied assignments our Lord would have you do. This secondary call is in harmony with the unique personality and gifting you have been given.
I say “in part” because you also show our Lord’s glory (his beauty and excellence) through simple obedience to his commands. These commands are given to all Christ’s followers in a corporate sense. That is, they are applicable to us all. For example, we are all called to love our enemies. But there are some who may be called to love their enemies in an especially prominent manner that reflects a secondary calling.
An example of a secondary call
Imagine you are a follower of Christ Jesus who keenly feels the horror and sorrow of human trafficking. Surely, the traffickers themselves are your “enemies.” Yet you pity them, for the condition of their soul must be horrible for them to be engaged in such an atrocity! Imagine, too, that you are also a member of law enforcement in a role dedicated to the capture of such criminals. Not only do you diligently apply yourself to their capture, you do so motivated by both a desire to protect innocent members of society from being enslaved, but also to begin the process of freeing the criminals themselves from their crimes. While incarcerated you spend time with the guilty, sharing the gospel both in word and deed. In everything, you are motivated by love and have responded to the primary call to follow Jesus into fellowship with God and the secondary call on your life to be especially involved with justice in its fullest, most redemptive sense.
Purpose is not constrained by your occupation
Although this secondary calling, the pursuit of redemptive justice, is played out within the context of your role as a law enforcement officer, it isn’t constrained by that role, or “assignment.” Should you be laid off, or retired from this official capacity, your calling simply takes a different form of pursuit say, for example, as the director of a half-way home for those convicted of human slavery crimes who have served their sentences and are now re-entering society.
Although your calling, your purpose, can be expressed through your occupation, it isn’t constrained by it. Your “job” is just one mode by which your calling impacts the world around you for good. Take away that particular job and your calling, like water flowing down a mountainside, will find any number of pathways to the sea of needy humanity all about you.
Michael
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