Week Four: Calling. January 22: What Wound might Flower into Calling?

Gregg’s Reflection

This week we look at one of the most powerful movements in our lives,  discovering our unique calling. If you haven’t discerned it yet, don’t worry, God reveals it at just the right time.

In the years after my baptism at 28, I felt a strong sense of calling—but to what, I had no idea. The message I often heard was simple: if you’re called, quit your job and go to seminary. There was no real sense of the “priesthood of all believers” in that advice. Somehow, it didn’t fit.

When I later heard the phrase “Bloom where you’re planted,” something clicked. So I stayed in place—spending 25 years learning business, management, and leadership. Along the way, I discovered systems theory, learning organizations, and Robert Fritz’s work on structure.

Only after my calling to equip the next generation of Kingdom leaders became clear did I realize those decades in business had been preparation for what God would unveil at the right time. My spiritual director, Mark Ritchie, says it this way: “Your calling is the intersection of your deepest desire and the world’s greatest need.”

I’ve learned that calling is found where passions and gifts meet. To discern it, we must know our deepest desires and connect them to a need in the world. For me, the deep wound of my father’s inability to love me in a way I could receive became the seed of compassion for young adults struggling with their own father relationships. Their deep need intersected with my deep desire—and my calling began to take shape. ChatGPT visualizes this idea: 

Scripture

Let each of you lead the life that the Lord assigned to you, to which God has called you.

1 Corinthians 7:17 

Ancient Quotes

The medicine of humility heals the wounds of pride, and often God permits us to be wounded in order that we may be healed to new life. For unless our weakness is seen, we cannot be made whole by His strength.

Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Book XXIII, §23, trans. John Henry Parker, Vol. 3, p. 486

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist. The scars remain, but they become signs of healing, not of harm.

Augustine, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, Chapter 11, §27, trans. J. F. Shaw, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, p. 246

Modern Quotes

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, p. 95 

Your calling is the intersection of your deepest desire and the world’s greatest need.

Mark Ritchie, personal teaching

Journaling Prompts

• What wounds in your life have shaped who you are today?
  
  
• How might God be inviting you to use that experience to serve others?
  
  
• What step could you take to begin turning that pain into purpose?
  
  
• Can you identify your gifts and passion? Is there a deep wound that might draw you to compassionately care for others with similar wounds?

👉 Go deeper into this week’s theme:
Read the full Week 4 Reflection: Calling