It is the fulfillment of what God has created you to be and do. Approaching your work as a job versus approaching it as a calling makes all the difference in whether or not you dwell in the miraculous universe. You have a calling simply because you are alive. You have a calling because you are a child of God. You have a calling because you are on this earth with a divine purpose: to rise to the level of your highest creative possibility, expressing all that you are intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, and physically in order to make the universe a more beautiful place. As you do this, your entire life becomes your ministry — a way to serve God and to serve the World.
“The best way to summon your true calling is to put yourself in service to God.“
If you’re thinking of money only as something you get in exchange for doing a job, then you’ll never be free of limited thought forms surrounding money. We are heir to the laws that rule the world we identify with. If you identify only with the material plane, you place yourself at the effect of pretty severe economic realities of scarcity and lack. If you identify with the spiritual plane, you are under no laws but God’s.
“I’m looking for a job,” “I’m trying to figure out what I should do”, and “I don’t know how I am going to make ends meet” are sentences that confuse the universe. A child of God doesn’t have to “look for a job”; a child of God doesn’t have to “figure out what to do”; a child of God doesn’t have to worry about “how ends will meet”. A child of God is simply a magnet for all things good. The you who thinks of life as a struggle, or a place where you’re on your own, is not the real you. The real you already has a God-given function, and the universe is set up to support it.
The best way to summon your true calling is to put your true self in service to God. The following daily prayer is from A Course in Miracles: “Where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?”
While a job is separate from the rest of our lives, a calling is a fulfillment of the rest of our lives. By striving to be the best that we can be, we create the internal blueprint by which we do the best we can do. On a soul level, we want to work, we want to create, we want to be productive and serve others and share our gifts to the world. Often it is not external forms of obstruction that hold us back, but rather internal ones. And nothing releases us internally more than the desire and the willingness to serve.
The world can give you a job, and a job can be taken away. But a true calling puts you in a career zone that cannot be taken away. It reflects your willingness to do what you feel inwardly led to do in order to help heal the world. The universe then registers your true substance, your true seriousness, and your true purpose. Some things you do will bring forth worldly wealth; other things you do will not directly bring forth wealth at all, but—being the right things to do—will summon wealth miraculously from the other sources.
Losing a job does not mean losing your calling, because as a personal ambassador of God, you have been given a permanent assignment. You are here to represent Him who sent you, and He does not change His mind about you. You are never unemployed by God. And that’s true not just about you; it’s true about all of us. Anything that appears to separate us from each other is not the deepest level of our identity. We all have different jobs, but the same ministry. Some of us are technicians, some of us are mathematicians, some of us are writers and artists, some of us are salespeople, some of us don’t even work as work is defined by the world—but our value, individually, is determined not by what we do but, by the consciousness with which we do it. We’re all here to be available channels for the love that heals all things. A job takes a form, but our ministry is content. Even if you lose your job you still have your ministry, because it is a part of who you are. Your life has no less value if you’re not employed as the world defines it. If you’re kind to people, if you’re compassionate, if you pour your excellence into whatever you’re doing, then you’re doing the job God sent you to do. From that will emerge the next form that’s needed to host the energies you’re bringing forth. Does that mean that you don’t have to “look for a job”as the world defines it? Of course you do! But you do it with a different consciousness. You don’t show up for a job interview thinking, “How do I impress them? I really need this job.” Rather, your process goes more like this:
- You place your need for work in God’s hands.
- While alert to every opportunity that presents itself, you put enthusiastic energy into brainstorming and creating new possibilities.
- You pray and meditate asking for internal guidance as to whom to call, what to do, and so forth.
- You realize that you can’t know what or where your next job should be.
- Before you go to a job interview, audition, or meeting, you blast every person you’re going to be with —and the situation itself—with light and love.
Your goal becomes simply giving and receiving love — which is another way of saying, “May God’s will be done.” You see every interaction as a holy encounter.
You intend for this and every situation to be one in which you express your truest, most brilliant, most loving self—and what happens beyond that, you leave to the intelligence of the universe. You’re not going to the interview to try to get a job; you’re going there to do your job!
Those five steps might seem as if they are just little things—hardly the operating principles that move the universe. Yet that is exactly what they are. On the spiritual plane, you have no competitors. There is no competition for your position, as you are a unique expression of the Mind of God. You not only have a place in the universe; you have an essential function in the universe. Only you can do the job of being you, and the universe itself is left incomplete without you. It is not arrogant but humble to realize this, as you place yourself in service to the greatest drama there is: the actualization of your own potential.
In the words of Confucius, “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
thank you , it was what i needed to read right now.
After working for a company for 8 years i realized that my job idn’t add meaning or value to (my) life and it was not where i was meant to be doing. i dont have the medical qualification, skills or knowledge to help people diagnosed with cancer but i have innate sense that my purpose in life is to work with families diagnosed with cancer and maybe provide empowerment where there was none. My journey is now patiently allowing the Creator to show me how to go about doing that.
This speaks to a shift toward wholeness. Instead of operating in survival mode, a calling propels us into our wholeness. One thing Marianne doesn’t explicitly say, though it’s an undercurrent in the article, is that this shift requires profound trust. We have to deeply trust our lives, our souls, and the wisdom of spirit.
I recently made a switch from a “job” to my life’s work and everything has become so much easier for me. When who you are at your core becomes your way of life…well, it’s a different life than when there is disparity between the two. Thank you for shedding light on this.
Living a life based on what you truly value and the unique skills and ways you can offer these values to society is a blessing not only for your own sanity and well-being but a blessing for all who receive your gifts.
Perhaps not every one´s calling can result in a form of a regular income, but it can still serve as a useful and enjoyable hobby or may even be some type of charity or non-profit work.
Marianne Williamson makes a good point that often it is our own internal fears/insecurities/negative dialogue that stop us from going after our dreams and true nature and calling.
I wrote a blog post inspired by the famous quote by Marianne in her book Return to Love about shining your light:
http://rainbowinmyclouds.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/shine-your-light/
Namasté.
In June 2010 I lost my “dream” job which I considered to be the pinnacle of my career and education. For a period of time I lost myself as well. For so many years, what I “did” versus who I was being had more value. Fortunately I woke up (again) but it took some time. After six months I found a new job that I still hold, it is equivalent to a position I held in college over 20 years ago and at even less pay! But I am happier at this job because it has given me the freedom and flexibility to discover my calling. Because this job has no stress, does not require me to do anything after hours, and is flexible with my time off – I’ve been able to develop my holistic healing practice.
My calling to be of service has come in to play so many times among my co-workers. I’m the one they come to for advice, they have been the supportive anchors and catalysts as I’ve starting classes in meditation and mindfulness. I finally came out of the spiritual closet at work and so many doors have opened once I replaced fear with love.
Now my calling has brought me together with another healer and we are joining together. Office space at a very low rent manifested for us and we are now able to offer our gifts and everything about it feels exactly as it should be.
I feel so lucky to be doing my calling rather than a J-O-B – I work as a law of attraction coach, energy healer and Reiki Master/Teacher and also full time as a Team Senior in mental health. I get to help others grow every single day and it gives me huge pleasure. One of my passions is to help other people figure out what their passion is and reach their full potential. Great article.
The following sentence is for me one of the most powerful I have read: “A calling, however, is an organic field of energy that emerges from the deepest aspects of who you are.”. I also believe that our calling might change depending on where we are at in our lives. I had received a message to be a yoga teachers years ago and I did teach for a few blissful months until I got pregnant with my beautiful first daughter – and then I had to stop. I thought I would start teaching again when my daughters were older, but life sent me somewhere else, and provided me with a wonderful job which allows me to pay the bills and insure that my kids have a roof over their head and healthy food to eat. Sometimes, we need to be flexible and not stay “stuck” unto an idea, but allow the Universe to take charge. And, if I really am meant to teach yoga again, then I trust that all will come in due time.
Many of us spend our years slogging away at a job without realizing that we have special gifts that God wants us to use to create a world that is more peaceful, more loving, and more generous. Marianne reminds us that we are here to represent God and do the work that we were created to do.
Living this philosophy is definately a life changing path to walk.
“You’re not going to the interview to try to get a job; you’re going there to do your job!” I love this quote and it can be applied to so many things, not just job interviews. As a WAHM, just starting a small business, this is so helpful to me. Just do things for the sake of doing them without thinking of what I will receive in return, “blasting it with love”, and just letting the best outcome unfold, feels good to me.
I think it’s helpful to think when applying for a job, that ‘yes’ or ‘no’ are both guideposts from a friendly universe to show us where to go next.
Although these theories and philosophies sound good, they don’t apply to people who are living in third world countries. For example: “a child of God doesn’t have to worry about “how ends will meet”. A child of God is simply a magnet for all things good.” a belief like this still does not feed the starving children no matter how much they put their trust in a God that will support them. The people living in these countries do not have options of a job, or food, or medical care no matter how much they believe and trust. Theories that only apply to the capitalist western world.
I am sure the above article is based on Marianne’s book The Law of Divine Compensation. In the preface page xiv-xv I quote, and agree with her,
“Some people might read this book (article) and say, “oh yeah? well what about starving children in Africa? Are they poor because their consciousness is unaligned with love?” . . . Starving children in Africa are not poor because their consciousness is unaligned with love; they’re poor because ours is”
Your right Kimberly, people in these countries,or people in our own countries, may not have options of a job, food, or medical care. But if we in our capitalist western world can align our hearts with love, realise that we need for nothing materialistic and live our calling to ease the suffering of Humanity, then we should.
Maybe, people in these types of places are aligned and calling to them what they need, but we are so lost in ourselves we cant here the call.
Thank you for Job v Calling, I have wanted job, and i did the visulization of the job interview and the call to say I got the job, the is the thing CONFIDENT: HAVING FULL BELIEF, we forget that our thoughts become our words, and our words become our actions. Intention is very powerful. Karen