Called to Write, Right?

Danger, Will Robinson.
I’m going to step on toes, the toes of my friends, the toes of my enemies. Heck, I’m going to step on my own toes. But there are some things I’ve been thinking about, and I think they are worth thinking about. Today’s post will be the first in a series of thinkings, some of which will be writing related, some political, who knows where I’ll go.
Today’s: the idea of being called to write.
Let the games begin.
What exactly do we mean when we say that God has called us to write? A road to Damascus experience? Why do we think God has called us to write? And do we believe with equal force that God called the plumber to plumb? If not, do we believe that we are more important than the plumber? We writers tend to be the romantic sort. I don’t mean romantic as in Love Story, Affair to Remember romantic, but romantic as in French Revolution, Liszt, Romantic Period sort. Being called to write is a very romantic notion.
And although I believe that God is both sovereign and intimately involved in His creation, I wonder if we put too much blame on Him sometimes.
In college, I believed I was called to the music world. Majored in music. Had plans all set up for a master’s in music. I was going to Boston. Then, spring break of my senior year, I couldn’t ignore this “calling” any longer. God told me to go to seminary instead, I knew. So go to seminary I did. Four years of it. Greek and Hebrew and exegesis and theology and preaching. The works. And I knew within the first semester that God called me to missions. Overseas missions. Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in the way. Focused, I was. Studied cultural anthropology and missions philosophies. Honed in on Italy and studied their culture and customs. Applied for TEAM mission board. Communicated with a team in Italy. Then. And then. I met Chris my last semester of seminary. He was not headed to permanent overseas missions. I cried. A lot. I almost broke up with him many times. He almost broke up with me many times. All over the missions thing.
But,
But we ended up together. Happily married. Very happily married. Sigh of contentment. God called me to Chris. And then God called me to writing.
You see what I’m getting at? Where am I getting this notion of calling? Or am I bathing my own desires in holy water?
After I graduated from seminary, I worked as a medical receptionist for a time. Make no mistake. I never felt called to that! My friends in the office are very good at what they do. Organized. Efficient. Great with the patients, even when the patients leave spittle on the glass window from their rants and raves. And they like the job. They like the people, the environment, doing something they are good at. Nobody ever said they were called to be a medical receptionist. But do it they do, and very well.
I’m not a Deist. I don’t believe God just wound some cosmic clock and then left it all up to us. But where did we get this calling language?
People in other cultures, and by other cultures, I mean specifically the Two-Thirds World, are too busy trying to survive to be called to something specific. Don’t get me wrong. Great writers and artists and artisans emerge from the Two-Thirds World, but do they write because they are called or because they have something to say and the talent to say it?
I think this idea of calling is a bit on the Western culture side, heavy with North American ideals. What Color Is Your Parachute? and all that jazz.
But here’s also what I think: God gives us talents and he gives us desires and if we choose to pursue them in His will, He uses them in His kingdom work. He uses everything. In my life, he’s using my music. He’s using all that theological and cultural anthropology training. He’s using my love of writing and reading, two loves I’ve had since I can remember. Do I have to write? Yes and no. I love it. I always have and always will write. It’s hard. It digs. It forces me to think about God and His creation and His kingdom in different ways. But I don’t have to in the sense of publication. I choose to pursue that. I’ve prayed about it. And God will do with that what He will. I know that it depends on Him.
Here’s also what I think: we are called. Called to love, to preach the gospel, to heal the sick, to feed the poor, to follow Christ. I can find that in the Bible. But I talk more about my calling to write, to specifics, than I do my calling to incarnate Christ.