Vocational Calling Quotes

I realized mechanical engineering doesn't much lend itself to missionary work.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work a) that you need most to do and b) the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you've presumably met requirement a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you've missed requirement b).

I received my calling and accepted it at around 18.

When I was at seminary in my early twenties, one of my teachers said to me, "You're going to have to decide. Either you're going to be an academic or you're going to be a pastor. You can't be both." I remember thinking, Rats! I want to be both! Why are you telling me I can't do these two things?And so I have kind of oscillated to and always wanted to do both.

When my father died, it sounds kind of simple but I just had the desire to step up and pastor the church. It was what I was supposed to do. I just took that step of faith.

I love what I do, and I never thought about doing anything else. I think my voice was bestowed upon me; it was a gift I was given. I just had to learn to understand how to use it.

Finding the right work is like discovering your own soul in the world.

There certainly is an affinity between a person and his work, but it is not easy to define what this affinity is, and on that question many judge quite wrongly.

Everyone is called, everyone is sent out… The call of God can reach us on the assembly line and in the office, in the supermarket and in the stairwell, i.e., in the places of everyday life.

The only literary men are those who have to work at it.

Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman, he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for.

Think of your career as your ministry. Make your work an expression of love in service to mankind.

The younger you are, the more experimenting you should do. But once you've found what you were created to do, stick with it.

A timeless lesson for a deeply fulfilling life is to discover your calling, that special work or consuming occupation that fully engages your special talents with your passions.

When I was a kid, I thought that if everyone looked up the way I did then everyone would want to study the universe just like me - how could they not? This naiveté is what tells me that my interest was more a calling than a rational comparative assessment about what to be when I grew up.

Purpose has to do with one's calling - deciding what business you are in as a person.

When we reduce the notion of “calling” to work inside the church, we fail to equip our people to apply their Christian faith to everything they do, everywhere they are.

If four years of university can increase your effectiveness of what you can do for others in the name of Christ, it is the best investment that you can make. But if the education is simply to get a job to make a lot of money, you have to raise the question of why you're doing it.

Let us pray for all good and faithful priests who dedicate themselves to their people with generosity and unknown sacrifices.

Wherever my career takes me, I know I'll love getting there, because ever since I was 2 1/2 years old, I knew that this was all I ever wanted to do.

Set yourself earnestly to discover what you are made to do, and then give yourself passionately to the doing of it.

Our young men are going into the professional fields because they don't 'feel called' to the mission field. We don't need a call; we need a kick in the pants. We must begin thinking in terms of 'going out,' and stop our weeping because 'they won't come in.' Who wants to step into an igloo? The tombs themselves are not colder than the churches. May God send us forth.

I've done everything. I've sung, done records, plays... It just so happened my first professional job was as a dancer. I've done the whole shebang, darling. But dancing was my first professional engagement in 1974. I got paid for it, so that was it, my vocation. But my parents weren't keen. They wanted me to be an accountant in Italy. Or a lawyer. They were furious. I had to run away. I had to leave the country.

To write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers pay within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for.

Those of us who have been lucky enough to experience a calling in our work have a certain faith and peace of mind that it's exactly when we're supposed to be doing.