What if God calls me to something I hate?
This is a question I often asked myself when I looked publishing square in the eye and wondered if I could stay in my dream career forever. I’d been working as an SEO manager at the time and trying to write in whatever bubbles of time I had (not many).
I remembered people in the Bible who likely didn’t like their calling at the time.
Joseph probably hated being sold into slavery in Egypt, then being falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit and thrown in jail. Job probably wasn’t the happiest about his whole family getting wiped out and that he developed sores all over his body.
Even Jesus balked at his calling. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he asked God to take the cup away from him. Nevertheless, he relented, and accepted his very difficult calling. One we could never imagine undertaking.
So, I was left with the question: What if God asked me to leave publishing?
Then I remembered something a pastor once shared. A story. It went something like this . . .
The pastor’s son was excited to accept Jesus into his heart, but the pastor wasn’t sure he fully understood what that meant. So he asked him, “What’s the one job you never want to do?”
His son answered, “A janitor.”
The pastor then asked his son, “If God told you to become a janitor, would you do it?”
When the son answered no, the pastor said he wasn’t ready to accept Jesus into his heart, because doing so sometimes requires a very hard calling.
Eventually, the son decided that he would accept Jesus, even if he became a janitor.
Feeling humbled, I prayed a similar prayer, “God, if you want me to drop publishing tomorrow. If you want me to work a job that I don’t love, I’m willing to do it. I go where you call me.”
Incidentally this all happened as I wrote Curtain Call, a book about following the call God gives you.
God moved in incredible ways after that prayer. He actually granted me a job in publishing that allows a lot of time to write.
God doesn’t always give us the desires of our heart like he did for me. But he does step with us in our calling.
So will God give you a calling you hate? Maybe, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say you will hate it. He will give you a hard calling, but when you look back on it, it will make so much sense why he moved the way he did.
Don’t be afraid to pray that prayer, and follow that call.
Hope Bolinger is a Managing & Acquisitions Editor at End Game Press and the Founder of Generation Hope Books. More than 1400 of her works have been featured in various publications ranging from Writer’s Digest to Keys for Kids to HOOKED to Crosswalk.com. She has worked for various publishing companies, magazines, newspapers, and literary agencies and has edited the work of authors such as Jerry B. Jenkins and Michelle Medlock Adams. Twenty-one of her books are under contract or out now with traditional publishers, and she hopes more of her stories will find a home soon. She has also contributed to twelve other books. Find more about her at hopebolinger.com
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