LISTEN TO WHAT PEOPLE ASK YOU TO DO

'When someone calls, it means they think they have a need you can fill. This is the heart of vocation. Vocation is not being able to fulfil our desires, pursue our passions, or follow our bliss. Vocation is about being called by others to serve.'

Karen Swallow Prior; You Have a Calling, p.65.

THE SECRET OF LIFE

'The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of every day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do.' 

Henry Moore in David Brooks, The Second Mountain, p.295. 

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO WITH YOUR LIFE?

'Let the young soul survey its own life with a view to the following question: 'What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?' Assemble these revered objects in a row before you and perhaps they will reveal a law by their nature and their order: the fundamental law of your very self.' 

Friedrich Nietzsche in David Brooks, The Second Mountain, p.98. 

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

'We usually ask little kids, What do you want to be when you grow up? I wonder if we're setting them up for failure with that question. Maybe a better question is, Who are you? What do you think God made you to do when you grow up?' 

John Mark Comer, Garden City: Work, Rest and the Art of Being Human, p.73. 

PERSONALITY AS VOCATION

'Without deemphasisizing the value of the Bible in knowing my calling, I have come to understand an even more basic place in which God's will for me has been communicated. That is in the givens of my being. My temperament, my personality, my abilities, and my interests and passions all say something about who I was called to be, not simply who I am. If I really believe that I was created by God and invited to find my place in his kingdom, I have to take seriously what God had already revealed about who I am.' 

David G Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself, p.92. 

VOCATION

'Nothing is worth doing that can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.'

Reinhold Niebuhr in David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.46.

VOCATION

'...vocations almost always involve tasks that transcend a lifetime. They almost always involve throwing yourself into a historical process. They involve compensating for the brevity of life by finding membership in a historic commitment.'

David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.46.

VOCATION

'At what points do my talents and deep gladness meet the world's deep need?'

Frederick Buechner in David Brooks, The Road to Character, p.22.