Gordan Smith

The thesis of the book is that each person is created by God with a calling to serve God in the world. God calls and enables His children to be his kingdom agents within every sphere of life and society. Each vocation is an avenue by which God is accomplishing the establishing of His kingdom. Likewise, each believer “has worth and significance…Christians are not merely “channels of God, they are to be co-workers with God”. The book’s purpose, therefore is to “help people achieve their potential in God’s service, to encourage them to “fan the flame of the gift of God” so they can make a difference for God in the world”. Vocation is not synonymous with a career or job or position. It is “living a life congruent with who we are, how God has gifted us, graced us and thus called us.” “As a married couple, each one needs to answer the questions of self-knowledge. But he calls readers to rethink particularly the woman’s role. It is not just to support her husband. “Husbands need to come back to the extraordinary words of the apostle Paul (Eph.5) that the husband is to give himself for his wife so she can flourish – i.e, to enable her to discover, enhance and fulfill her vocation, a vocation that will certainly be a compliment to mine but which will have an internal and inherent integrity and focus of its own”.
When we embrace God’s unique calling for our lives, we are freed to accept our limitations, move beyond illusion about who we are and take responsibility for our own giftedness. We are freed to do everything as unto the Lord (Col3:23). That includes excellence, truth, diligence, generosity and rest which gives balance and perspective. We are freed from the misguided sense of duty and expectations that often pressurize people into compliance, and the temptations of power, material security and prestige that sidetrack us from our calling. “The need doesn’t constitute the call” so we have to be able to say ‘no’. We are to get our direction from