DISCOVER

YOUR
STORY
A Biblical Guide to
Finding Your Calling

HUGH WHELCHEL
 © 2016 Institute for Faith, Work & Economics.

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 What is your biggest

FEAR ?

Richard Leider and David Shapiro, in their book, Repacking Your Bags:
Lighten Your Load for the Rest of Your Life, found that the number-one fear of
most people is having lived a meaningless life.1
More recently, the Barna Group reported in one survey that 75 per-
cent of U.S. adults say they are looking for ways to live a more meaningful
life. Only 40 percent of practicing Christians surveyed said they have a
clear sense of God’s calling on their lives.2
These numbers point to what Barna has termed “a revived quest for
meaning.” Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be a fruitless quest. You can
find your calling and live a meaningful life. The calling God places on
your life reveals itself through prayer, reflection, and trusted input from
friends and relatives.
This guide is meant to be a helpful resource in finding your calling.
It uncovers basic truths about calling while offering useful tips as you
recognize what God has created you for.
WHAT YOUR CALLING IS... AND ISN’T
It’s easy to get confused about what “calling” means. It’s often mixed
up with “job” or “career.”
Calling is much more than a job or career. It embraces all of life. It
is like an umbrella, covering the whole of life, and under which your job
or career fits.
In his book The Call, Os Guinness distinguishes between two types
of calling, primary and secondary. Our primary calling is to be followers
of Christ. Stemming from this primary call to Christ are what Guinness
refers to as secondary callings. These callings are what we are to do with
our lives.3 Our obedience to our primary calling can be seen working
itself out in four distinct ways...
 1

The call to

FAMILY

We are called to be a part of our human family: brother, sister, son,

daughter, father, and mother. This call has its basis in Genesis 1:28, known
as the cultural mandate: “And God blessed them. And God said to them,
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it...” The family is
one way we fill the earth with the image of God, thus fulfilling the cultural
mandate.
In his book God at Work, Gene Veith expands on this call to family,
saying,

“Every Christian - indeed, every human being - has been

called by God into a family....The family is the most basic
of all vocations, the one in which God’s creative power
and his providential care are most dramatically conveyed
through human beings.”4
 2

The call to

CHURCH
The

All members of the church possess spiritual gifts, natural gifts, and
abilities. We are called to use these gifts in service within the church to
build up the body of Christ and carry out its purpose in the world.
The diversity of gifts, each supporting the other, strengthens the
whole church “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge
of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure
of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
 3

The call to

COMMUNITY

The gospel commands us to serve God’s purposes in the world

through civic, social, political, domestic, and ecclesiastical roles. We are
to love God and our neighbor in the larger community beyond the church
by engaging in justice and mercy as God leads us.
Tim Keller in his book Ministries of Mercy insists, “To say that
evangelism can be done without also doing social concern is to forget
that our goal is not individual ‘decisions’ but the bringing of all life and
creation under the lordship of Christ, the kingdom of God.”5
 4

The call to

V O C AT I O N

This is the call to God’s service in and through your work. The work of
believers possesses a significance which goes far beyond the visible results
of that work. The process of doing the work, as much as the results of
that work, is significant to God. There is no distinction between spiritual
and temporal, sacred and secular. All human work, however lowly, has
the potential of glorifying God.
Work can be an act of praise. Work glorifies God, it serves the common
good, and it is something through which human creativity expresses itself.
 Under this definition, you may have different careers and jobs at
different points in your life, but your calling from God will stay constant.
Your job can change over time, but your calling remains constant
because it’s who God created you to be. Rick Wellock, a director at the
Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, offers the following insight on the
“whole-life” definition of calling laid out above:
“God’s will for your life is not a job. Rather, it’s being who you are,
where you are, with who you are with, given the way you’re gifted and the
way you’ve yielded those gifts.”6
In addition to pointing out that calling isn’t limited to your job, Wel-
lock’s observation touches on another important truth: your calling isn’t
something you figure out on your own.
There is no substitute for having a wise friend listen to you and reflect
back like an accurate mirror what they see. This becomes clearer as you
dive into how to find your calling.

HELPFUL TIPS FOR RECOGNIZING YOUR

CALLING
There are a lot of different tools available, such as Strengthsfinder™
and the Abilities Potential Test, to help you learn more about yourself
and your unique talents and abilities. We recommend you take advantage
of those!
However, one unique way to find your calling comes out of your own
life experience and accomplishments – your own story. Here’s how:
Remember who you are in Christ. You possess dignity and
significance.
1. Being made in the image of God provides the basis for
your calling.
2. Because God is creative, and we are made in his image,
we can be creative in our calling, too.
Reflect on your life history.
1. Think back on what you have enjoyed doing throughout
your life, and what you have done well.
2. List at least three illustrations drawn from various periods
of life, such as: grade school, junior high and high school,
college, and post-college.
3. As you reflect, ask yourself three questions: 1) What did
you do? 2) How did you do it? 3) How was it satisfying
to you?
4. Pay attention to the verbs you’re using to describe your
experiences. These verbs are clues to determining prominent
themes or patterns in your stories. Write these themes and
patterns down.
Reveal your reflections and stories to a friend, mentor, or relative.
1. Share the details of your stories with someone you trust.
Note (or have them note) the following:
• Any recurring subject matter.
• What places you played on any teams you were a
part of growing up.
• What kinds of challenges trigger your motivations.
• How and why you’re motivated to learn.
2. Share the answers to the three questions listed above. Have
your friend make note of the verbs you use, too – they
might see something you missed. They might also catch
themes or patterns you don’t see yourself.

Going through these steps can help you see things about your talents
and personality that you didn’t see before. They might also affirm things
you already know about yourself.
Once you’ve gone through these exercises, share them with your
family and friends (especially if you went through these steps by yourself).
Listen to what they say and how they react as you share with them what
you’ve discovered about yourself.
Another next step is to write down in a journal what you’ve learned.
It’s easy to forget everything you’ve discovered. Journaling about your
findings will help cement the experience in your mind. It’s also helpful for
processing everything.
Paying attention to the way God has created you and finding a wise
friend willing to listen will reap dividends throughout your life as you seek
to recognize and pursue your calling.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
• How Then Should We Work? Rediscovering the Biblical Doctrine of Work
– by Hugh Whelchel
• Cure for the Common Life – by Max Lucado
• Strengthsfinder 2.0
• The MCORE Test
• Abilities Potential Aptitude Testing and Career Guidance

1. Leider, Richard and David Shapiro. Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the
Good Life, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Berret-Koehler, 2012).
2. “Three Trends on Faith, Work and Calling,” Barna Group ac-
cessed February 2014, http://www.barna.org/barna-update/
culture/649-three-major-faith-and-culture-trends-for-2014/.
3. Guinness, Os. The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life (Nash-
ville: Thomas Nelson, 2003).
4. Veith, Gene. God at Work (Redesign): Your Christian Vocation in All of Life (Wheaton:
Crossway, 2011).
5. Keller, Timothy. Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, 2nd ed. (Phil-
lipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1997).
6. Elise Daniel, “How to Find Your Calling,” Institute for Faith, Work & Eco-
nomics blog, February 1st, 2013, http://tifwe.org/how-to-find-your-calling.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hugh Whelchel serves as the executive
director of the Institute for Faith, Work
& Economics and brings a unique
combination of executive responsibility,
creative educational administration, and
technical innovation from over thirty years
of diverse business experience. Almost
a decade ago, Hugh stepped out of a
successful business career in the IT industry
to share his experience of turning around
unprofitable companies with Reformed
Theological Seminary’s struggling Washington,
DC, campus where he served as executive director
and guest professor.
In addition to his business acumen, Hugh has a passion and expertise
in helping individuals integrate their faith and vocational calling. He is
the author of How Then Should We Work? Rediscovering the Biblical Doctrine of
Work, released in May 2012. Hugh is a contributor to The Washington Post/
On Faith “Local Leaders” website and has been published on The Gospel
Coalition website and byFaith Online. He has also been a guest on Moody
Radio Network’s “In the Market with Janet Parshall,” Salem Radio
Network, IRN/USA Radio Network, and Truth in Action Ministries’
“Truth That Transforms,” and the “Jack Riccardi Show,” among other
shows.
In addition to serving on the board of several Christian non-profits,
Hugh has served as the executive director and board member of The
Fellows Initiative, an umbrella organization supporting and establishing
church-based Fellows Programs which are designed to help young adults
understand God’s vocational calling on their lives as they enter their
careers.
A native Floridian, Hugh earned a bachelor of arts in sociology from
the University of Florida and a master of arts in religion from Reformed
Theological Seminary. Hugh and his wife Leslie now live in Loudoun
County, Virginia. As an ordained ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church
in America, he serves in leadership at McLean Presbyterian Church in
McLean, Virginia. In what little spare time he has, Hugh enjoys hiking,
golfing, and restoring old sports cars.

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE FOR FAITH, WORK &

ECONOMICS
IFWE is a Christian research organization committed to promoting
biblical principles that help Christians thrive in the workplace for the glory
of God, the common good, and the advancement of God’s kingdom.
IFWE conducts and translates high-level theological and economic
research into practical resources that will help Christians integrate their
faith in the workplace and become better stewards of all that God has
given them. For more information, visit www.tifwe.org.
Dive deeper into calling by
rediscovering the biblical
doctrine of work.

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