Discerning Your Spiritual Calling: The Importance of Rest & Restoration
In our fast-paced society terms like, side hustle, fast-paced work environment, and maximizing motivation have become synonymous with success and prosperity. Yet, within this frenzy, society is reporting higher rates of depression and anxiety, less job satisfaction, and increased stress in work and family life. Our modern culture idealizes the 24-hour workday, sacrificing your personal health for your job, and the alienation of family and friends because of a busy schedule.
This fast-paced way of life is not what God intended. There are signs that rest and restoration are important. In the day's cycle, there is daylight to work and the evening darkness to rest. The four seasons reflect sequences of new growth in spring, sustained growth in summer, harvest in fall, and deep rest in the winter. As we look at the animals, they move through periods of activity and rest. Despite society’s emphasis on insane levels of hyper-productivity and overstimulation; rest is important to your life and even more important for your spiritual calling.
Discerning Your Spiritual Calling: Moving into Dominion of Your Spiritual Call
The sixth day of the creation story is one of the most important stages of understanding your spiritual calling. On the sixth day, God created humankind in the likeness and image of God and gave every person dominion over creation. With this God given dominion, God sent humankind out to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (Genesis 1: 26-28, WEB, 2022).
Dominion is an interesting word as rarely can a person articulate feeling a sense of complete dominion in your life. You certainly have strengths, skills, and attributes that you excel at; yet owning dominion over your life is something that feels foreign and distant. The reason for this alienation is the conscious pattern of thought you live in determines how much dominion over your spiritual calling you will manifest.
Discerning Your Spiritual Calling: Plans, Processes, and Strategies
The Creative Life:7 Keys to your Inner Genius (Butterworth, 2003), uses the creation account to outline a seven-step meditational process for discovering your spiritual calling. The first four stages included Enlightenment, Expansion, Visualization, and Inner Guidance.
Enlightenment occurs when you first notice your spiritual call. You may not have the details of how it will manifest; but you feel a drive to respond. Then, in the second stage, your spiritual calling expands, and you become familiar with the larger goals. The third stage encourages visualization. The visualization fills in the details of your call.
Visualization moves from within outward and will take the form of pictures coming to your mind, imagining future activities, and re-occurring inspirational thoughts.
During the fourth stage of inner guidance, God provides the larger goals of your spiritual call, and you say, “I think I could actually do that”. Yet, the fourth stage remains aspirational; it is not until the fifth stage of your spiritual call that the processes, plans, and strategies for implementing your call occur.
Discerning Your Spiritual Calling: Using Your Inner Guidance, Will, and Ego
The Creative Life:7 Keys to your Inner Genius (Butterworth, 2003), uses the creation account to outline a seven-step meditational process for discovering your spiritual calling. The first three stages included: Enlightenment, Expansion, and Visualization. The fourth stage uses your Inner Guidance and Will in the process of discernment.
Enlightenment occurs when you first notice your spiritual call. You may not have the details of how it will manifest; but you feel a drive to respond. Then, in the second stage, your spiritual calling expands, and you become familiar with the larger goals. The third stage encourages visualization. The visualization fills in the details of your call. Visualization moves from within outward and will take the form of pictures coming to your mind, imagining future activities, and re-occurring inspirational thoughts.
Discerning Your Spiritual Calling: Envisioning your Call & Eliminating Worry
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 meditational process for discovering your spiritual calling. Just as the creation story manifest in stages, the revelation of your spiritual calling is progressive. The first stage is illumination, the next, expansion, and the third, visualization. Butterworth notes each progressive stage of the creation story provides guidance on how you can fulfill your purpose and create a life of meaning.
The creation story begins with God illuminating the earth with the phrase, “Let there be light”. This is a metaphor for the moment you first noticed your spiritual calling. You become inspired and open-minded to the possibilities of engaging in something bigger than yourself. You may not have the details of how the calling manifest; but feel a drive to respond.