God calls us first to his family (relationship with him), and then to the family business (vocational calling). Involvement in the family business exists to serve and strengthen the family bonds and not to weaken it.
Our primary calling is first a calling to an ever-deepening relationship with God. If there were never work to be done, God would still call us to his family and live and have a relationship with him. God can do everything alone. He has no needs. If we see any problems in the world today, God can solve them by simply saying a word. He invites or calls us to join him in his work and do specific things not because he needs the help but because he wants to allow us to participate with him and grow in the process. That arena of work that God calls us to is our secondary calling.
Many different authors use different words to describe these realities. Os Guinness, like me, uses the terms primary and secondary calling in his book titled The Call. George Hillman, in the Foundations of Spiritual Formation, calls them primary and functional callings. It doesn’t matter what one calls them. The key is never to confuse them. It’s vital to never emphasize the secondary calling to a particular type of work over the primary calling to a relationship with God because vocational calling derives its importance from the call to a relationship with God. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul. That love happens within a relationship — God’s family. The commandment to work, and any other commandments that we have been given, hang on the commandment to love God and live in relationship with him.
Yet, we know we are often tempted by being so busy with our work (secondary calling), that we don’t have time for a relationship with God (primary calling). As a fellow sojourner and traveler, I write this brief post to remind myself and you of the primacy of our primary calling. Everything else flows from it.
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