Is our work our “calling”?

I am a teacher. And I try to be a good teacher. Like everyone else, some days I succeed better in my attempts than other days. But, for me, striving to be a good teacher isn’t an end in itself. To be sure, teaching is a very noble profession. But it is also a very demanding profession. And (speaking for no one else but myself) I would say that if I were to make “being a good teacher” my ultimate goal, there would be a very real danger that I would soon burn out.

I like the distinction that Os Guinness (1998) makes between a primary calling to God and secondary callings to one’s profession. He says: 

“Our primary calling as followers of Christ is by him, to him and for him. First and foremost we are called to someone (God), not to something (such as motherhood, politics, or teaching) or to somewhere (such as the inner city or Outer Mongolia). Our secondary calling, considering who God is as sovereign, is that everyone, everywhere, and in everything should think, speak, live, and act entirely for him. We can therefore properly say as a matter of secondary calling that we are called to homemaking or to the practice of law or to art history. But these and other things are always the secondary, never the primary calling. They are “callings” rather than the “calling”.” (Os Guinness, 1998, The Call: Finding and fulfilling the central purpose of your life. Waco, TX: Word Books, p. 31)

Many people have said that they feel “called” to the teaching profession. Well, I didn’t know that I would love teaching until I started teaching. I am very blessed to be in a profession that I like, but I am very aware that teaching is not the central purpose of my life. I am first and foremost called to love the Lord my God with all my heart and soul and mind (Matthew 22: 37), and to understand that in all that I do, “it is the Lord Christ [I am] serving” (Colossians 3:24).

My primary calling is to God, not to teaching. And in a strange yet wonderful way, it is this very realisation that gives me the drive to continue  working towards becoming “a good teacher”.

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Photograph (by R Tang): Flowers in Black Kettle, Ireland, 2011   

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