The quest for a calling. Man, I have struggled with this one. I like to tell woman, I'm like okay, I am 35. I think I'm where God wants me to be now. I have been an aerobics instructor, a personal trainer. I've worked in corporate life, in a cube in front of a spreadsheet. I have been a counselor. I've gone to grad school. I've done 18 jobs since I graduated college. I really believe looking back that every single one of them was part of a winding road toward where God would have me. I think for women more than anything else is embracing the fact that the road is going to be a winding one, that there's going to be times where road turns and you think this has nothing to do with anything that I want to do and that the road will turn back.
I went through a season of probably five years where every woman who I admired because of her influence because of the work that she did, I would try to pull aside and say "Can you tell me about your life leading up to it?" I was consistently frustrated because the stories were so winding and different. What I wanted that woman to say to me was here's five ways to get where you want to go and every single one of them it's like oh and then I did this and as it happened I said I'm going to raise my kids for a while and then I did. I'm thinking I can't follow you. I can't follow your path, which was of course very frustrating because I like to know how to get somewhere that I want to get. What God was doing in me of course was shaping I'm in control.
I'm the one who picks the way that your path goes. What I often say to women is I want you to picture your work life, your career, your relational life as a dartboard. All you want to do is get on the dartboard. You are not trying to get a bullseye. Let go of the bullseye. Let go of thinking this job has to meet every one of these needs and has to fulfill me in every way. Just get on the right dartboard. If you like people, try to get in a job where you work with people. Now you may be working at Starbucks, but guess what, you are learning a lot about the human condition when you are working at Starbucks. If you love to write, well start a blog. Do something where you're on the right dartboard. If you would just get on the right dartboard, God will start working out some of who he's made you to be, break some things in you that need to be broken, develop some confidence in you, let you work through relational issues and all kinds of things.
If you do those things, you're going to be getting closer to what we all want, which I think is that call from the Lord, but he's not going to give you the next 20 steps. People say this all the time and I hate it. I still hate it. He's not going to give you the next 20 steps. He's going to give you just one, but I just know it to be true and I'm just trying to live it out. It's just one. You don't have to have this huge amazing goal for the next 20 years of your life. Because guess what, you're not in charge of the next 20 years of your life. All you need to know is am I able to live out an obedient life to the Lord in the moment that I'm in and to actually trust and have the self discipline to believe that he'll take care of the next moment.