Your Spiritual Calling is Lifelong
Your Spiritual Calling in Early Childhood Through Adolescents
We often view a spiritual calling as a onetime life event. From this perspective, it is easy to forget that calling is a lifelong process. Just as you physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually grow overtime; your spiritual calling grows with you as well.
Viewing a spiritual call as lifelong is perhaps one of the healthiest approaches to your calling. It does not lock you into one path or purpose. God can use your talents, gifts, and abilities in new flexible ways that allow you to respond to the needs of an ever-changing world.
One of the best ways to explore how your spiritual calling changes is to explore the developmental tasks you grow through at various stages of life. These stages include early childhood, later childhood, adolescent, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and later life (Erikson, 1950; Zastrow & Kirst Ashman, 2010). Each of these developmental stages have their own unique opportunities and challenges that form us spiritually.
This article will explore spiritual calling in early childhood, later childhood, and adolescents. Part 2 will explore the role of your spiritual calling in early adulthood through late life.
Title: Wooden Pathway Through Nature’s Wonderland, Author: Josh Stuart, Source: Flickr is licensed by CC BY 2.0
Your Spiritual Calling in Early Childhood:
The usual time for focusing on your spiritual call occurs during adolescents into early adulthood. During this time, you are determining your future career, choice of college, and desired family life. Yet, your childhood can be an unconscious messenger identifying your true calling and purpose in life.
The primary language of your early childhood is play. It seems odd to look at your childhood play patterns as in an indicator of your calling. Yet your play patterns may express what you're here on this earth to do!
The stories and imaginary play of your early years can reveal a lot about your future calling. For some, you may have played doctor, farmer, or store clerk. Maybe you focused on other roles, such as a caring mother or father, for a favorite stuffed toy. Perhaps you enjoyed playing with cars, trucks, or building materials such as blocks. All these early childhood interests may be an indicator of your future spiritual calling.
The themes and repeated stories of your childhood play are foundational in understanding your early experience of a spiritual call. As you think of repetitive themes, you will probably see some relationship between your play and your adult life interest.
Spiritual Calling in Early Childhood Example: John
John was a 30-year-old who worked various entry-level jobs as a grocery store clerk, a courier, and janitor. He told a career counselor he wanted more meaning from his work. It surprised John when his career counselor asked about play themes during his early childhood. Despite his surprise, John shared his love of watching his grandfather work in the shop. He reminisced about playing with a toy shop bench in his grandfather’s garage.
When the career counselor explored this interest further, John expressed, he always enjoyed working with tools and building. John currently had a small workshop in his garage where he would spend hours creating furniture. With continued guidance from his counselor, John could identify his early childhood connection to playing in his grandfather’s garage as a bridge to his new career as a carpenter. John envisioned designing and selling furniture.
John saw meaning in creating handcrafted, wood furniture for families to enjoy and pass down to future generations. He was excited to explore this new spiritual calling and use his skills as a craftsman to help families furnish their homes. He never imagined how early life play themes would guide him to his new career.
Activity1: Recalling Early Childhood Play Themes in Your Spiritual Calling
Your Spiritual Calling in Later Childhood:
When children enter school, this is a period of life where mastery and competence in basic skills develop. The family is no longer the center of a child's social world; instead, peers, teachers and learning become the center stage of development.
It is during this age where you likely started developing your social skills and interest. You mastered relationship skills with new friends, teachers, and coaches. Education introduced new topics like math, science, language, and the arts. These new subjects taught you to struggle with learning new concepts, problem-solving, and building confidence in your emerging skill set.
Just as your play patterns in early childhood can guide you to your spiritual calling; so, can your experiences in grade school. The subjects in school you excelled at, the activities you enjoyed (sports, music, reading, writing, etc.), and the clubs you took part in can provide a sign of what your spiritual calling may be.
Spiritual Calling in Later Childhood Example: Susan
Susan was a 22-year-old who was attending community college and having difficulty picking a major. She had delayed declaring a major as she didn't know what academic emphasis she wanted to pursue. The choices overwhelmed her.
Susan approached her academic advisor for help with picking a major. Susan hadn’t considered her interest in grade school as a guide to her spiritual calling and future. Yet, as she started talking about her grade school experiences with her advisor; her interest in a life path became much clearer.
One of her favorite activities in grade school was cooking in a 4-H club. She loved cooking so much she would ask to cook dinner for her family. Each Saturday, she would make grand meals that would seem impossible for the average ten-year-old. She enjoyed all her classes in grade school; but she secretly hoped to take cooking classes all day long.
Her academic advisor asked her if she had ever considered going to culinary school instead of continuing her training at a four-year college. Susan noted that she always wanted to cook for a living. Yet she allowed family pressure to pursue a traditional degree path dissuade her from pursuing culinary training. Trying to please her family and friends was one reason Susan delayed picking a college major.
The advisor empathized with Susan’s desire to please her family, but also reflected to Susan her resilient, lifelong desire to cook for others. Together, the advisor and Susan developed a simultaneous plan to investigate four-year colleges to appease Susan’s family, but also begin exploring culinary training. Eventually, Susan found a university program where she could major in business with an emphasis in culinary arts.
Activity 2: Recalling Later Childhood Interest, Skills, & Abilities in Your Spiritual Calling:
Your Spiritual Calling in Adolescence:
During adolescents you start thinking of a lifelong spiritual calling in the realm of a job or career. Your peers form your main social influence during your teens. As you encounter new individuals and groups, you are likely to try on a lot of different ways of interacting with the world, and these experiments create your identity.
At this stage, the confidence, and skills you gained in later childhood become more honed.
During this period of development, you discover what makes you unique. You can identify objectively your strengths and weaknesses as you try new things. Because of these experiences, you will develop goals and plans for your future. In addition, you begin to use your skills, talents, and abilities in ways that you can see that you have an impact on the world.
Spiritual Calling in Adolescent Example: Pete
Pete was a 17-year-old about to set off for college. He was unsure if university life was the path for him. Pete, through a youth organization, had volunteered on four humanitarian relief trips during his summer vacations. On these trips, he helped impoverished communities cultivate clean water, sustainable food supplies, and medical care.
Pete wasn’t sure if he wanted to attend college; but he knew he wanted to help others. His volunteer experiences helped him identify three key things about his identity. He loved to travel, desired to help emerging countries receive needed resources for sustainable living, and he enjoyed working with people from various cultures.
Pete met with his guidance counselor and could articulate these goals as his spiritual calling. Pete’s experiences provided him a guiding light to a need in the world that he could meet. His guidance counselor helped Pete look at this career path from a long-range perspective.
The guidance counselor asked him key questions like would attending college empower Pete to better accomplish his goals? The counselor encouraged Pete to explore how his goals impacted Pete’s desire to have a partner and a family. They also explored various career opportunities in humanitarian relief and what levels of training were required to serve in this field.
While Pete could clearly identity his goals and interest from his experiences; he needed help to hone how his skills, abilities, and talents could best be used to meet the need. In addition, his guidance counselor assisted Pete in exploring the cost and benefits of pursuing additional future vocational training in humanitarian relief.
Activity 3: Recalling Adolescent Interest & Identity in Your Spiritual Calling
Conclusion:
The age that we think about our spiritual calling is often during a time that we give little thought to our early life experiences. Through exploring these periods of your life, you can gain divine wisdom and insight into the specifics of your spiritual call. Your spiritual calling will reflect the subjects, activities, and groups you enjoyed as you grew up. Spiritual calling is a lifelong endeavor and your early life experiences can provide guidance in the definition and pursuit of your spiritual call.
Activity 4: Tying It All Together
By: Heath B. Walters, Ph.D
Copyright © October 27th, 2022, Heath B. Walters DBA Spiritual Life Resources, All Rights Reserved
Reference
Erikson, E.H. (1950). Childhood & Society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.
Zastrow, C.H. & Kirst-Ashman, K. (2010). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole-Cengage Learning.
Case Study Disclaimer
The case studies are purely fictional and do not reflect the experiences of any known person to the author. Any similarities between the case studies and your own life experiences are purely coincidental.