Later he left the firm to accept a promising position with a new company, which soon went bankrupt. He went to graduate school for his M.B.A. Here’s a summary of his unfolding story: impressive college record, great job, notable success, upward mobility, fine marriage, risky career change, business failure, time to think and pray, grad school. What’s next for him? I’m looking forward to finding out. So is he.

Another graduate went to Nashville absolutely convinced that God wanted her to serve in the Christian music business. She was the kind of person I would hire: industrious, articulate, hardworking, and faithful. Plus, she knew Christian music. She moved to the music city in faith. From what I could tell, she did everything right to find a position.

After many months, however, she gave up and settled gratefully for a job in a different field. She’s still baffled about her earlier sense of occupational calling. Was she wrong about God’s will? Was she too early on the music trail?

In spite of our confusion about callings, God claims us for service before we are aware of it. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,” proclaims the psalmist.2 God “chose” us in Jesus Christ, Paul writes.3 I don’t pretend to comprehend this.

In spite of such comforting words, however, we ought not to wait around for perfect knowledge of God’s plans for us. Recently a man guiltily told me in private that he wasn’t sure about God’s calling. “Neither am I,” I admitted. But I added that we must go on, being faithful followers wherever our journey takes us.

Faith is patient, not lazy. The great Christian writer John Milton (1608–1674) wrote after he had gone blind, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Following Christ is an ongoing journey, not a one-time blast of revelation or a straight trajectory.

Nevertheless, God’s calls sometimes are too crystal clear to ignore, although even obvious occupational calls usually lead us to a general field of work rather than to particular jobs or tasks.

Before his conversion to Christ, Saul (later called Paul) believed that his purpose in life was to discredit Jesus and his followers. Saul became a professional critic. He had a gift! Then Saul journeyed toward Damascus, where God called him to become a preaching follower. The people traveling with Saul were speechless.4 After all, Saul probably was among those least likely to follow Jesus.

As the book of Acts and Paul’s letters demonstrate, he spent the rest of his life trying to figure out how to be a follower (one who is called). For him, vocation led to traveling as a missionary, preaching here and there, encouraging other believers, spending time in prison, escaping from hostile crowds, advising churches on how to settle staff and theological conflicts, and recruiting more followers. In these and other ways, he cared for the emerging church of Jesus Christ. All such activities became his many stations.