Is a sanitation worker called to their job in the same way that a classroom teacher is?
How do we make sense of the idea of calling in jobs that people don't often dream of getting?
Our egalitarian impulses may lead us to say that "Every job is a calling." But it doesn't seem quite true that every job is a calling in just the same way.
Maybe it's not so helpful to ask, "Is this job a calling?" Instead, we can ask, "In what way is this job a calling?" Even if a job is primarily about putting food on the table, you're still fulfilling the call of God to provide for your household.
Some jobs provide more extrinsic motivation. Others provide more intrinsic motivation. Some jobs are impactful right there on location. Other jobs are impactful beyond the workplace and the community. We can be honest about those differences—and about whether we dislike our job or not.
But within whatever job we have, let's see how the callings (plural!) that God has on our life might be fulfilled in different ways within that job. We can find the meaning that's already there by God's grace.
Sources: Galatians 3:28 (NIV) Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels, Working for Better: A New Approach to Faith at Work (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2025).
Ways of Understanding Work as Calling (Figure 3.1 from the book). Copyright © 2025 by Elaine Howard Ecklund and Denise Daniels Barwell. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA. www.ivpress.com
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