You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good and Beautiful
By Karen Swallow Prior (Brazos Press)
Author Karen Swallow Prior offers a helpful and insightful examination of what it means to discover and live out one’s calling. Prior seamlessly weaves together biblical principles, literary examples and wisdom gained from personal experience.
She begins by distinguishing calling and vocation from work and passion. Work has inherent value, in addition to providing income and—perhaps—a sense of fulfillment, but calling has a higher purpose. Passion can provide the fuel to help us achieve some great purpose, but many individuals labor in jobs totally unrelated to their passions. They may be called to something far greater than what could be a fleeting passion.
Sometimes, specific vocations or callings may be only for a season of life, but all Christians share a common lifetime calling, Prior asserts. She makes a compelling case that every Christian is called to pursue truth, goodness and beauty, because those transcendent qualities are characteristics of God.
You Have a Calling obviously would make an excellent gift for a recent high school or college graduate who is seeking to discover his or her purpose. It can serve as a good reminder to retirees or to those who soon will retire that employment lasts for a season, but calling lasts for a lifetime. And Christians at any stage in life will resonate with Prior’s admonition to live authentic lives of wholeness and integrity before God.
Ken Camp, managing editor
Baptist Standard
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