In college, I felt “called” to teach in a specific city in SE Asia. After graduation, I was hired for a teaching position in this city, where I eventually met and married my husband. Everything was lining up according to plan. I had obeyed and followed what the Lord wanted of me. I was doing everything right. Even when our middle child was diagnosed, we were given the “green” light by the doctors and therapists to return. The school my husband worked for was supportive. Life was looking a little different, but we were still following what we felt “called” to do. 

Then the head banging began.    

Around the age of two, our daughter began to bang her head against the floor or the high chair in anger. We sought help from specialists from a neighboring country and learned that she was frustrated because she could not communicate. She could understand what we were saying and knew what she wanted to tell us, but her syndrome deals with the fifth chromosome, which allows for speech. She is missing a part of it. Conclusion: We needed to teach her to communicate differently, and we would need weekly speech therapy.  We limped back home and began researching cities in our country that could help. Our school system called various places, but we were told that there were no facilities available that could help. 

“Did we mess up?” 

“Did we get our ‘calling’ wrong?”  

“Can ‘callings’ change?”  

“Is there such a thing as ‘calling’?” 

These were my silent questions as we contemplated our future. 

Looking back, I honestly leaned toward the idea that if I did all the right things, then I would stay on the path that I was “called” to. You know the pattern – that if we do A & B, then we can expect C to happen. I had left family and moved to a country that I did not know. I read my Bible, taught classes, and was raising our children in the ways of the Lord. So, shouldn’t the outcome be that we stay? Why were we to leave? 

Oh, my young, naive self.  

As I’ve matured, I have come to realize that “calling” does not equate with doing all the right things to get a certain outcome. In fact, as I looked at Ephesians 4:1, many scholars wrote that the “calling” mentioned in this verse refers to our witness of Christ. It is not associated with a specific location or even vocation. So, what does it mean to “walk in a manner worthy of our calling” (Eph. 4:1)? Turning to Colossians 1:10 may give us a clue. It reads, “so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” I believe that to “walk in a manner worthy of our calling” is to daily live our lives in ways that “bear[s] fruit” in our work and increases our “knowledge of God”. Knowing God’s character and understanding more of all that He has already done for us, we cannot help but want to live that kind of life.  

I no longer “do” what I thought I would be doing when I graduated from college, but my “calling” has not changed. Calling does not mean living in a specific country or doing a specific ministry. Calling is daily walking with the Lord and obeying what He has for us that day.