Your Spiritual Calling is Lifelong Part 4: Later Life
God is gracious in your final spiritual call as it is during your later years you prepare for your death. This may sound glum; but it is indeed a gift when viewed in the right lens.
Later life is time filled with losses that remind you of your own mortality. Individuals retire; lose friends, family, and spouses to death; develop physical and cognitive impairments; and experience health declines. You may also experience changes in social status because of changes in income and housing.
Whereas your earlier spiritual calling in your life is a call to action; your later life spiritual call is a call to thought and reminiscing. Individuals that have lived a life of purpose and meaning in earlier stages find a sense of acceptance, wholeness, and peace as they prepare for the dying process. For others, the life review process can cause a sense of hopelessness, shame, and a deep disappointment regarding lost opportunities. The antidote to this sense of despair lies in personal spiritual practices, forgiveness, and re-visioning your past. In addition, it is imperative to seek social support and build ongoing relationships with others.
Your Spiritual Calling Is Lifelong Part 3: Midlife
We often describe midlife as a time of crisis. Stereotypes of the midlife crisis are common in our culture. The husband abandoning his family for a younger partner, or the mother who is angry over giving up her own goals for her family are two common themes. Despite the stereotypes, midlife is a great opportunity for both renewing and redefining your spiritual calling.
As midlife occurs before your final stage of life, it becomes a period of reflection regarding your past accomplishments, regrets, and future death. Self-reflection results in greater dedication to care, nurture, and the desire to mentor those around you. The negative side of this deep reflection is a withdraw from the world and your spiritual calling. This withdrawal results in increased self-centeredness. You put your needs and concerns above those around you. This deep selfishness leads to losses in personal productivity, poor relationships with others, and increased isolation.
Your Spiritual Call is Lifelong Part 2: Early Adulthood
As noted in Part 1 of this article, we often view our spiritual calling as a onetime life event. Unfortunately, this approach to your spiritual call is very limiting because you mature physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually over your lifetime. For this reason, a onetime, one size fits all approach to calling does not work for individuals. Instead, you need to approach your spiritual calling is a flexible manner that allows you to adjust your calling as you grow and develop overtime.
Viewing a spiritual call as a lifelong, unfolding process is perhaps one of the healthiest approaches to spiritual calling. You're no longer locked into one path and one purpose. God uses your talents, gifts, and abilities in new and flexible ways. This flexibility responds to the needs of an ever-changing world.
One of the best ways of exploring your spiritual calling is to explore the tasks we accomplish at various life stages. 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 to form you spiritually.
Your Spiritual Calling is Lifelong
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.