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We're Thinking About Calling All Wrong
533 Plays2 years ago
Wanna know the two surprising questions that are leaving you stuck and distracted: "What am I called to do?" And "What is God's will for my life?" 99% of the time we’re thinking about the artists calling all wrong. We’re asking the wrong questions.
In this episode, Lisa unpacks the two distracting questions keeping you from living out your true call, and the focused questions that will give you the freedom you've been longing for.
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Transcript
Introduction to Be Make Do Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello, welcome to Be Make Do with Soul Makers Podcast, where we talk about what it takes to pursue your calling as a culture maker with spiritual wholeness and creative freedom.
Uncertainties in Discovering One's Calling
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm your host, Lisa Smith, and it's my passion to encourage and inspire you to become who you were created to be, make what you were created to make, and do what you were created to do.
00:00:37
Speaker
Now, what do you do if you're unsure about your calling or you're feeling uncertain about how you live out your faith and stay true to your artistic integrity? Well, here's the deal. 99% of the time when we think about calling, we're asking the wrong questions. We're thinking about calling all wrong.
00:01:02
Speaker
So today I'm gonna show you two distracting questions that are keeping you from living out your true call.
Lisa's Acting Journey and Purpose Discovery
00:01:10
Speaker
And then I'm gonna share with you the focused questions that will give you the freedom you've been longing for in your career and calling. So let's get started.
00:01:28
Speaker
When I was about 22, I stuffed my geoprism full of all my miniskirts and chunky heels. It was the early 90s. Squeezed my little brother into the passenger seat to keep me company and headed west to LA with my freshly bestowed BFA in acting and absolutely no real idea how to begin my calling as an actor.
00:01:50
Speaker
But I did manage to find a commercial agent and start auditioning and they helped me get head shots and sign me up for a marketing class designed to get actors more work by identifying your type. And after weeks of assignments, like having strangers at the airport list adjectives to describe your appearance and creating personalized cards to introduce ourselves to casting directors, we finally got an assignment that actually changed my life.
00:02:18
Speaker
We were asked to write a purpose statement with three criteria. One, it must be only one sentence. Two, it's something you've probably known your whole life. In fact, you may have said it at one point when you were little and maybe somebody made fun of you or didn't take you seriously. So maybe you don't take it seriously. And three, it must encompass every part of your life, not just your career.
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, this exercise got me reeling. First of all, being succinct is a challenge. So one sentence was difficult. I did know that thing. For me, it had always been to be an actor. I knew I wanted that.
00:03:07
Speaker
But I was running into a challenge being a newbie in LA. I loved film. I love theater. I believe devotedly in the power of art. But I wasn't sure I was willing to do commercials and audition for the types of roles that were offered to me for the rest of my life. I was learning that I didn't just want to act.
00:03:28
Speaker
I wanted to be an actor in service to something that mattered, to stories that mattered. And that led to the last part.
Critique of Traditional Calling Questions
00:03:40
Speaker
I'd never thought about my purpose beyond that acting dream. If my purpose extended to every part of my life, I thought, well, I guess it has to have something to do with God.
00:03:54
Speaker
And that opened up a whole new world of questions for me and let me down a whole other path. Because I wasn't particularly active as a Christian at that time, but something about the God thing just wouldn't let me go. It was like a crack had opened to think about what I was really doing with my life. And God just took that opportunity to invite me to think bigger.
00:04:18
Speaker
But if you're an artist, and you're a Christian, inevitably at some point you're going to ask yourself, just like I did, what does God want for my life and work, and how can I know for sure?
00:04:33
Speaker
But that question can easily leave you stuck in a land of uncertainty, influenced by so many competing opinions from inside and outside the church. Mainly because when people generally think about calling, they're focused on what you do, on what you produce or create or the impact you have. But I believe this way of thinking is problematic and it ends up leaving a lot of artists of faith stuck.
00:05:03
Speaker
because there's a better way to discern calling that makes it possible to know for sure what God wants for you as a person and as an artist by asking different questions than the ones we normally ask. Just like that wonderful marketing class challenged me to ask different questions about my purpose so many years ago.
00:05:24
Speaker
What I found is a biblical vision of call that takes you beyond material success, mere self-expression, or even the artifacts that you produce, and into a divine calling to become who you were created to be, make what you were created to make, and do what you were created to do. So let's dive in.
00:05:49
Speaker
I'm going to show you two distracting questions keeping you from living out your true call. And then I'm going to share with you the focused questions that will give you the freedom and wholeness in your career and calling. So what are these distracting questions? Okay, the questions might surprise you. Here they are. What am I called to do? And what is God's will for my life?
00:06:16
Speaker
But those are the questions. They're the questions you ask to discern calling and purpose. Those are even solid church questions. How can those questions be distracting? Well, let's see.
Identity vs. Job Roles in Calling
00:06:30
Speaker
First, you may notice the questions are very I and me focused. What am I called to do? What is my purpose? What is God's will for my life? These questions are distracting because they place me front and center and make God and others supporting characters in my story
00:06:55
Speaker
Second, they depend on the idea that somewhere out there is a script or a playbook or someone who can tell you what God specifically intends for your life and can tell you what twists or turns might be in store. And you either gotta get that script or get really good at interpreting the signs and getting it right, or you're gonna miss out on the big plan God had for you. But there is no script.
00:07:23
Speaker
Finally, these questions are focused solely on what you do, produce, or accomplish for yourself, God, or somebody else.
00:07:34
Speaker
Let's go in reverse order and start with the problem of do. So what's wrong with do? Okay, try something with me. So imagine that I'm a little girl and a grownup is meeting me for the first time and they come up to me and they say, hi little Lisa, how old are you? Wow, five is such a big girl.
00:07:56
Speaker
So Lisa tell me what do you want to blank when you grow up? What do you want to be when you grow up? They ask and I answer I want to be an actress
00:08:08
Speaker
Now, fast forward 25 years. I'm at a party and Stu comes up to me. Hey, welcome to the party. I'm Stu. What's your name? Cool. Hi, Lisa. So what do you blank? What do you do? He asks, right?
00:08:27
Speaker
So what happened there? Somewhere along the way the question changes and we stop identifying with who we want to be and start to place identity and purpose in what we do or produce. Okay, you try it now. Imagine you're five or six and a relative asks you, what do you want to be when you grow up? What's your answer? How do you feel when you give that answer?
00:08:54
Speaker
Now, imagine you're at a networking event or a party and you're meeting someone for the first time. And right after they ask your name, they ask, what do you do? What do you answer? And more importantly, how do you feel when you answer? The funny thing is
Artistic Calling Beyond Material Success
00:09:12
Speaker
that our answer might actually be the same in both situations. I might say I am an actress or I want to be an actress when Stu asks me what I do.
00:09:24
Speaker
But I'm not really talking about the qualities and character I want for my being and my life like I was when I was a child. Now I'm simply talking about a job and what I do with my day. The meaning in the conversation is different. The words might be the same, but I'm answering a different question and my thinking about it has changed.
00:09:50
Speaker
As a child, I'm describing who I actually want to be. I want to live out those different lives that I see on screen. I want to feel those different feelings. I want to have those adventures. I want to be a hero, et cetera, when I'm thinking about being an actress. Or a kid who says I want to be a fireman, they're not really thinking of the ins and outs and day-to-day responsibilities of a fireman. They're thinking,
00:10:18
Speaker
I want to be a firefighter. I want to be somebody brave and strong. I want to be somebody who goes towards the action and helps people. But as an adult, I'm answering with what I do.
00:10:33
Speaker
Even though underneath are still all those heart things about who I want to be, what I'm answering, Stu, is something different. I'm helping someone categorize me or find common ground by giving them information about what I do, about how I make money and contribute to the world.
00:10:52
Speaker
In fact, probably if I'm answering at 25 about wanting to be an actress, I'm probably going to qualify my answer with I'm an actor, I'm auditioning a lot, but I also work at a coffee shop during the day and I've started my own home business. But yeah, I'm auditioning a lot and I'm trying to break into acting. But why do I feel the need to qualify it with all the things that fill my time?
00:11:21
Speaker
because I've conflated these two questions. Who are you and what do you do? By the time we're young adults, most of us are no longer responding to a question about identity with who we are. We're responding to that question about identity with what we do or some other role that we fill as a signifier, like our political party, our physical characteristics, our sexual partners, the car we drive, where we live, et cetera.
00:11:50
Speaker
We subconsciously start to define our worth to society and other people and God and ourselves through those lenses. However, that's not how God sees us. That is not our identity.
00:12:06
Speaker
When we make the mistake of conflating what we do with who we are, we muddy the waters of identity and calling. Because what you do and who you are aren't the same thing. It's not the whole story. And what you do is not your purpose. It is not your whole calling. And that is why we're so confused when it comes to our calling. Especially as artists,
00:12:35
Speaker
Making do the sole reference point for calling and purpose is just, it's almost nonsensical for an artist. Like do when? At what stage in my life and my career am I fulfilling my purpose then? Because most of the time what we produce, what an audience sees, what's appreciated and valued by other people is just one piece of the puzzle.
00:13:02
Speaker
There's so much more to our calling, including the world behind the work, the process, the development of craft, your own personal development. Your work as an artist has everything to do with who you are, regardless of what you're creating or showing or getting paid for or appreciated for at any given moment or phase in your career.
00:13:29
Speaker
I mean, think about all the artists whose work actually changed the world, but had little or no impact until long after they were dead. Like the poet T.S. Eliot, he worked full time as a banker to support his writing for his entire career. So his answer to what do you do would have been, I'm a banker.
00:13:54
Speaker
Emily Dickinson was a recluse who struggled to find publishers. Nobody wanted to print her work. In fact, somebody told her that her work was generally devoid of true poetical qualities. That's a pretty pinpoint there. She didn't end up on every high school reading list until long after her death.
00:14:15
Speaker
Grandma Moses was a farmer most of her life and didn't even start painting until her late 70s and didn't get recognized until her work was found hanging in a drugstore somewhere. And then it eventually went to museums and galleries.
Integrating Faith and Art in Calling
00:14:32
Speaker
Bach, his music wasn't enjoyed by anyone outside his family and friends until after his death.
00:14:40
Speaker
Bach died in 1750 and the work of one of the most influential composers in Western history was not appreciated until the 1800s. Alma Thomas spent most of her career as a junior high school art teacher. And it wasn't until she retired that she started doing her own painting and became the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
00:15:07
Speaker
And then finally, Vincent van Gogh painted over 900 paintings, but nobody liked them and nobody cared during his lifetime. He basically almost starved. He was considered a complete failure when he died. And it wasn't until years after his death that his work became and is so important.
00:15:32
Speaker
So thinking about all of those, and those are just a couple of examples, all of those examples of artists, were they only fulfilling their calling in retrospect? Do we have to wait until after someone dies to know if they fulfilled their calling?
00:15:51
Speaker
Or can we say that the writer in the basement at 3 a.m. before her shift at the grocery store is fulfilling the call by being faithful to developing and exercising and giving away the gift? Doing things is certainly a part of call, but your calling starts way before that in developing who you are behind that action.
00:16:16
Speaker
So it's more helpful to switch the questions. The distracting question is what am I called to do? The focus question is who am I called to be and how am I called to be in the world?
00:16:32
Speaker
Calling is not just about what you do, it's about who you are and how you are in your work and the world, regardless of circumstances. And it applies to everyone all the time, especially artists.
00:16:49
Speaker
Jesus has a lot to say about who we're called to be and how we're called to be in the world. It takes conscientious effort and commitment and practice and prayer to surrender to this way of being human as God intended. And it's also the way to real freedom and wholeness as a person and an artist. This is the premise of becoming who you were created to be.
00:17:19
Speaker
Let's take a quick break.
00:17:48
Speaker
And that brings us to our second distracting question. What is God's will for my life? How can you know God's will for your life? When you bring God into our artistic calling, it tends to get tricky, I find. All kinds of questions surface. Do you need to use your creative gifts in a ministry or worship setting to be considered faithful?
00:18:12
Speaker
Or is it okay to be a professional artist, but you need to center your artistic pursuits on religious themes and messaging? Or maybe it's okay to create whatever you want, devoid of any explicitly religious themes, but the goal should be to use your work to gain a platform so that the example of your lifestyle as a Christian can be your real purpose.
00:18:37
Speaker
Your artwork itself in that case is released from any sense of religious calling. And now you have your art life over here and your faith over there. And one just has little to do with the other. And of course the questions don't stop there. What if you get it wrong? And what if there are lots of things that you can do? How do you pick the right one?
00:18:59
Speaker
And what if there are things you feel called to do but you don't have the skill or the training or the resources or the opportunity or the support to do it? Or what if what you want to do changes all the time? What if you're clear about what you want to do but you have a bunch of blocks right now? Does that mean you're not living out your purpose? You're calling? Are you just wasting time and space?
00:19:23
Speaker
Are you being disobedient to God by not doing that great big amazing thing that you were meant to do and you'd better hustle and get there because the world is waiting for you and you're wasting your life? No pressure. Remember how I mentioned how I and me focused those questions are? See how messy and complicated it gets when you focus there, even with a desire to serve God.
00:19:53
Speaker
Phrasing our questions about calling in ways like, what is God's will for my life, make me the star character of my life instead of Jesus. And implied is that other people will either be the subjects or objects of what I do with my life. I will do something for or to them. But this is not a biblical view of call.
00:20:18
Speaker
Jesus paints a picture of human life where we are with one another. We are in a mutually reciprocal ecosystem where everyone is an integral member of one body and we cannot do anything without receiving and giving, like breathing in and out. And this is happening all the time, wherever we are and with whomever we are, regardless of what we're doing.
00:20:49
Speaker
Asking what is God's will for my life seems helpful, but it's distracting. But the better-focused question is, what is God's will? And how can I live my life and do my work in alignment with that? See, instead of asking what is God's will for my life, I ask, what is God's will?
00:21:18
Speaker
And then, how can I live my life and do my work in alignment with God's will, where I am right now, in my current circumstances, with the people around me? Because we can absolutely know God's will, as reflected in the life and words of Jesus and the whole of the Bible story,
00:21:41
Speaker
so we can freely enjoy the gifts God has given us, making and doing in alignment with that will.
00:21:53
Speaker
Think about the calling stories in the Bible. When God calls Moses to lead the people out of Egypt, Moses isn't doing anything monumental. He's not an important leader or a warrior. He's minding his own business being a husband and a father and working as a shepherd for his father-in-law.
00:22:13
Speaker
When Abraham and Sarah were assigned to become the parents of God's people, they were in their sunset years with no hope of having children on their own. When Rahab was tasked with helping the Israelite spies escape Jericho, she was a prostitute. When Mary was selected to be the mother of the Savior, she was an unwed young woman with no resources.
00:22:36
Speaker
We don't usually consider whether or not these people were living out their calling before they were assigned those memorable tasks to do. We usually pick up the story at the big moment of assignment. But that one task was not the beginning of their calling. The task was only one part of a larger call from God, something to which God calls everyone.
00:23:01
Speaker
something to which you are called. It's a call to an abundant life and a secure identity found by knowing and walking in the will and way of Jesus. Jesus says, I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly. This is ultimately what God is calling you to, and everything else just flows out of that.
00:23:30
Speaker
In all these Bible stories, we can deduce that each person had been living into this much bigger sense of call long before the big assignment.
Embracing a Holistic Calling
00:23:41
Speaker
They had been living lives of seeking God in a variety of circumstances, becoming who God had created them to be. So they were ready to confirm that call in a particular task.
00:23:56
Speaker
They had been making what God had created them to make by developing the gifts and skills God had given them and learning from past mistakes, setbacks, and circumstances so that they could become more capable, wise, and prepare to act and do what God had created them to do.
00:24:18
Speaker
So here's the bottom line. Calling is not just about what you do. It's about who you are and how you are in your work and in the world, regardless of circumstances.
00:24:33
Speaker
You don't have a script or a playbook that tells you what God specifically intends for your life. But you can absolutely know God's will, and you can absolutely know who God created you to be.
00:24:50
Speaker
That's why calling is not simply about what you do. It's about becoming who you were created to be, making what you were created to make, and doing what you were created to do. And by focusing on and developing all three parts of calling, you can trust yourself to enjoy the gifts God has given you,
00:25:14
Speaker
and have the freedom to do what seems meaningful and fulfilling along the way. You can begin to trust your discipled, disciplined voice as it challenges and moves audiences even in very unconventional ways. You can allow yourself the freedom to not have to be obvious or to do work that is not yours to do. You have a calling as an artist.
00:25:40
Speaker
Now it's up to you to leave behind those distracting me questions that fixate only on what you do and instead embrace that three-part call to be, make, and do. That's where you'll find the real freedom and wholeness you've been longing for as an artist and as a person.
Conclusion and Resources
00:26:05
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Be Make Do, a Soul Makers podcast with your host, Lisa Smith. We hope you enjoyed our deep dive into we're thinking about calling all wrong. Join us for our next episode where we ask who's afraid of making mistakes.
00:26:20
Speaker
You can check out all the links and resources in the show notes as well as sign up for our exclusive email list at soulmakers.org. Subscribe to Be Make Do wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on Instagram at Soul Makers Podcast.