Discerning Your Spiritual Calling: Expanding & Awakening Your Faith:
Eric Butterworth (2003) in the book The Creative Life: 7 Keys to Your Inner Genius, uses the Genesis creation account to outline a seven-step meditation process for discovering your spiritual calling. Butterworth notes that each stage of the creation story provides guidance on how you can fulfill your purpose and create a life of meaning. This article explores the second step of the meditational practice: awakening your faith.
During the initial phase of creation, God formed the heavens and the earth by separating light from the darkness. Metaphorically, this is the equivalent of the initial revelation of your spiritual call. You receive the initial illumination, yet you don’t have the details or the plan for how your calling will manifest.
Discerning Your Spiritual Calling: Let There Be Light
Discovering your unique spiritual calling can be a daunting task. The general call of creation, building community, and caring for the environment and those around us provides some guidance on the path of discovery. However, discovering how your unique skills, talents, and abilities are manifested through a spiritual calling is overwhelming. This article will outline the first of a seven-step, meditational practice based upon the work of Eric Butterworth, a Unity Minister.
The book: The Creative Life: 7 Keys to Your Inner Genius, (Butterworth, 2003) approaches the Genesis creation account from a metaphysical perspective that helps you become a co-creator with God in defining your calling. According to Butterworth, each stage of the creation story provides guidance on how you can fulfill your purpose and create a life of meaning. This article applies the framework of Butterworth’s seven keys to the calling of Moses and provides a basic approach to meditational practices that can help you discover your spiritual calling.
How Do I Know I Have a Spiritual Calling?
Discerning your individual spiritual call is a struggle. You may yearn for a clear, concise road map that will guide you to your life’s mission, but callings are rarely so clearly outlined. Think about it! What you are really wanting when discerning God’s call is a magic letter in your email inbox. The magic email would outline the date you needed to report to duty, the supplies needed, and concise guidance on how to best pursue your calling. The email may even include a basic orientation on how to navigate the uncertainties and fears associated with your calling.
Unfortunately, your spiritual calling does not come as a magic letter. In fact, if you were to do an exhaustive search of the Bible, no person is called to spiritual service in the same way.
Discerning Your Spiritual Calling in Ordinary Life
One of the biggest mistakes you will make when attempting to discern your spiritual calling is looking for the extraordinary. Multiple biblical stories surround God’s calling with angelic proclamations, burning bushes, and miracles. Yet, we never consider these stories are told repeatedly throughout history because of their extraordinary nature. There are indeed many astonishing examples of God’s calling individuals to service in miraculous ways; yet the instances of calling to a particular vocation or profession are rare in Christendom. So, let’s look at the ordinary ways that God calls you to serve.
Crisis and Your Spiritual Calling
There is a misnomer that your spiritual calling fills you with bliss, peace, and divine guidance. This lie promises a peaceful light of God comes upon you, and, in a state of awe and heavenly ecstasy, God reveals your future path. I would challenge you to find this idyllic calling any place in the Bible. I guarantee you won’t find it.
Crisis precipitates spiritual callings. It can be a personal, family, or even national crisis; but a precipitating crisis appears to be a primary element of calling. You can find examples of this pattern in any biblical story in the Bible. Today we will look at the stories of Joseph and Peter to explore how crisis interacts with calling.