Listen and Trust

Last month, our parish hosted a three-week virtual conference on vocation. Originally, we planned to offer a traditional, in-person conference, but the pandemic got in the way. What we discovered, however, is that a virtual conference enabled both presenters and participants from across the country, who ordinarily would not have been able to participate, to join us. If you missed the conference, you can still watch the presentations here.

The richness of that conference is still bearing fruit in my life. I am continuing to ponder the ways in which I am called by God and the ways in which the church supports the spiritual work of discernment in the lives of its members. This week, I have encountered again the church’s struggle to articulate a sense of call that is not restricted to ordained ministry. As an institution, the church has devoted considerable time and effort to recognizing and fostering a sense of call to priestly or diaconal ministry, but rarely have we given more than passing thought to the importance of discernment in the lives of all the faithful.

All of us are called by God. I believe that. But how are those of us who are called to be faithful without putting on a clerical collar supposed to hear that call? The book Listening Hearts describes God’s call as if it were a friend of family member reaching out to us: “People call us to get our attention, to make contact with us, to draw us closer to them. So it is with God” (p. 7). Maybe that is where it starts—with recognizing that God’s call may be as simple as a gentle pull toward the divine that we notice within ourselves.

One of the most consistent responses we received to the vocation conference came from individuals who have finished their primary career but want to take up the work of discernment for the next chapter of their lives. Having retired from one pursuit, they feel called to do something else—something meaningful, something significant—but they have not heard the church encouraging them to consider that as a holy endeavor. Indeed, participants of all ages and circumstances responded to the conference with a desire to listen anew for God’s call in their lives, but most of them are not sure where to start.

The vocations conference is only one piece of a much larger collection of spiritual resources for listening to God. If the thing we seek is a call from God, we might start by looking for ways to spend more time in God’s presence. Some are as familiar as weekly worship and daily prayer. Others might seem strange to us—like meeting with a group every week or engaging a spiritual director to listen for God’s call. Although many of us think of our relationship with God as something we live out on an individual basis, we are also members of a holy body, and we often hear God speaking most clearly to us when we listen alongside others. You or I may be called individually to a particular ministry, but that ministry will always have a place within the wider body of Christ. Who might you invite to join you in listening for God?

God may be calling you to do something—pursue a new career, volunteer at a local agency, adopt a new spiritual practice—but God may also be calling you to be something—the full and flourishing disciple of Jesus that God has created you to be. What that means in your life may be different from what it means in the lives of others, but your call is no less sacred and no less important. Being faithful to God means being faithful to God’s call. In all its various forms, ministry is a response to God. Allow yourself to trust that God is calling you and has been calling you from even before you were born. Discernment is not a riddle to be solved or a destination to be achieved but a lifetime of faithful listening and responding to God.

What will you do to listen for God? Start with the videos from the vocations conference. Explore some of the resources listed on that webpage. Call a member of the clergy or a trusted friend and ask that person to spend an hour listening with you. Think about starting a discernment group that meets virtually or in person every other week for no other purpose than to support each other as you seek to be faithful to God. If you are waiting on God to make an appointment with you, you might be waiting for a while, but, if you set aside some time for God, you can count on God to show up.

Yours Faithfully,

Evan