The PuritanBoard - View Single Post - Your Vocation

Dan.... · #19 (**permalink**) 09-15-2005, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by rgrove

Quote:

Originally posted by Dan....
I'm not sure I'd call my job a "calling" from God. If God has "called" me to my job, then do I no longer have liberty of conscience to move on to something else? I would say that my job selection is a matter of liberty. So long as what I do is not contrary to scripture, then I am free to choose whatever vocation I wish.

Nor do I question, "I wonder if God is calling me to do this or that?" If God had a "special call" for me, would He not have revealed it to me in the scriptures?

[Edited on 9-15-2005 by Dan....]

I'd concur with this myself. At an SBC church I used to go to there was a terrible book revered by many called "Experiencing God" by Blackaby. The outworking of this charismatic type theology was that people became distraught because they couldn't decide which house to buy, which car to buy. Which one did God want them to buy? Would God be upset with them if they got the wrong one? Then they'd all of a sudden get a "feel" for which one they should get and got it. I see a parallel here. If I don't like my job, I feel I have liberty to move to another one if the opportunity presents itself. If I go down the road of pressing too hard as to whether I'm "called" to do this job, or another job, I'll be put in the same spiritual prison that the people I just mentioned were in. They were tormented unnecessarily rather than praising God that he has given us multiple option and asking him to sanctify our intellect so that we might make the best decision possible knowing that neither is against His will. Hope that makes sense...

A good read on that combats the ideology of finding God's "special will" (i.e., "how can I be sure that ______ is God's will for me?" or, "I feel God is calling me to....") is Garry Friesen's Decision Making and the Will of God.

There is the revealed will of God (The Holy Scriptures) and the decretive will of God (whatever comes to pass); but to add a third category, that God has a "special will" that I need to "figure out" undermines the sufficiency of the scriptures.

[Edited on 9-16-2005 by Dan....]