S3E2 - You Don’t Find Your Calling, You Form It + Killing the Lightning Bolt Myth

In this episode, we continue our season on work and vocation by tackling one of the most misunderstood words in the Christian life: calling. The thesis is simple but disruptive: you don’t find your calling, you form it. So much of our cultural imagination around vocation runs on what we call the “lightning bolt myth,” the idea that one day clarity will strike, you’ll know exactly what you’re made to do, and the path forward will appear. But that’s not how calling actually works, and waiting for the zap keeps a lot of men stuck living someone else’s life. We lean on a line from Dallas Willard that reframes the whole conversation: “Your job is not your calling; your calling is to become a certain kind of person.” Before vocation is ever a profession, it’s a formation, becoming the kind of person who, like Peter on the water, says, “Lord, if you’re there, call me to yourself.” From that foundation, the question shifts from what am I supposed to do? to who am I becoming, and where is God already at work in my story? Justin shares his own “calling moment” around writing, fatherhood, and being a missionary in China, and how each of those took years, sometimes a decade, to actually take shape. Brook walks through his unexpected path into ministry and Intentional, and how saying yes to something unglamorous turned out to be the doorway into the work he was made for. Along the way, we talk about the danger of succeeding at the wrong life, the way ambition can quietly turn into idolatry, and Carl Jung’s warning that until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we’ll call it fate. We borrow a helpful framework from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ Designing Your Life, the overlap of what you enjoy, what you’re good at, and what the world needs, and we name that talent and even enjoyment are more formable than we tend to think. Calling is iterated, not discovered. We close with one of the most powerful practices we’ve shared on the podcast, Richard Foster’s prayer of relinquishment. It’s the practice of burying your hopes, dreams, and the version of yourself you’ve been chasing, and praying, Lord, resurrect whatever is from you, and let whatever needs to stay dead, stay dead. For many of us, that’s the doorway into actually forming a calling we couldn’t have planned. This conversation is a setup for next week, where we’ll dig into the question this whole episode raises: how do we have ambition without idolatry? Practices: Pray the prayer of relinquishment: bury your hopes, dreams, and ambitions, and ask God to resurrect what is from Him and let whatever needs to stay dead, stay dead. Revisit last week’s exercise and add a third circle: write down three things that give you life, three needs you see in the world, and three things you’re genuinely talented at, then look for where all three overlap. Identify a repeated pattern in your life or family of origin around work and calling, and ask: where did this start, and is it still shaping me? Intentional Fatherhood Retreat: November 12-14, 2026 in Austin, TX Scripture Mentioned: Matthew 14:22-33, Ephesians 2:8-10, Romans 8:28 + Exodus 2-3 Books Mentioned: Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans + Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard Foster Submit Questions: Send a voice recording to [email protected], mentioning your name and where you’re from. Intentional Fatherhood Website Follow @intentionalfatherhood_ on Instagram Watch + Subscribe on YouTube Intentional: Website + Instagram Justin Whitmel Earley: Website + Instagram