“What Is My Calling?” Reflections after My Week Unplugged from Devices

Bring along a cup of comfort and join me for a “virtual coffee date” where I share my reflections after my week unplugged from digital devices at family camp this July. We’ll talk about calling, the ever-wandering heart, and what I’m doing (or not doing) now that I’m back home. Let’s do this! *clink*

*Note: This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you make a purchase after clicking through, The Thinking Closet may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

“One week unplugged.”

I scrawled those words onto our Summer 2021 Family Bucket list in June with a hope and a prayer.

A hope that we could create the space to make it happen.

And a prayer that God would show up if we did.

Well, the last week of July was our family’s “one week” spent in the Adirondacks of Speculator, NY at Camp of the Woods. One week where Mark and I decided to silence our devices and go on a digital fast.

That meant:

And do you know what?

Not only did God show up, but He reminded me that He had never left. I just needed the space and the quiet to turn my ear to Him–and in the absence of noise, I discovered Him like a sweet song that was playing for us all along.

Oh, friend, I can’t even tell you how refreshing it was to my soul. And how plainly I started to see things…namely, my calling.

Since my college graduation 16 (!) years ago, it seems like I’ve been on a continual quest to discern what it is God made me to DO. And how I could use my gifts to make an impact on the world.

That quest has led me to pour my heart into a lot of meaningful work in each new season, but work that all too often centered on ME, using MY gifts, running on MY OWN strength.

And no matter how dazzling the view at the mountaintop, my achievements never satisfy the desires of my heart like they promise. The restlessness returns. And I decide,

“Welp, there must be something else then that I’m meant to do.”

And there is.

It’s quite simple actually. (But isn’t it often the simple things that are so easy to miss?)

While driving down the evergreen-lined highways in late July, my pen scribbling in my journal, I was reminded of the passage in Matthew where the Pharisees were testing Jesus, and one of them asked,

“‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” –Matthew 22:36-39

And it struck me: that is my calling laid out plainly.

First, I receive God’s love and love Him back.

And from that place of intimacy and connection with my Maker, I can love my neighbor selflessly.

In the words of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, “My vocation is love.”

Sure, I can ask God to bless the work He has for me. He will. He has!

But during our time away, I was able to see the cycle of striving I can so easily fall into when I make my calling all about me. It’s a dead end.

As Jen Wilkin writes in her book, In His Image,

“We love to deceive ourselves that in choosing self, we have chosen rightly. And we love to deceive others that our choosing of self is actually not selfish. We become wise in our own eyes, as Proverbs says [Prov. 14:12], giving the appearance of wisdom, but inwardly desiring the approval of others.”

No matter how I spin my agenda to make it look like holy work, things can so quickly get out of tune for me.

“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love.”

Do you ever sing lyrics penned by someone you never met that feel like they were born out of the depth of your own soul?

These are mine. From the 1758 hymn, “Come Thou Fount,” By Robert Robinson…or Rob-Rob, as I assume his boyhood friends called him from across the soccer field–err, football field, as they call it in bonny England.

Rob-Rob’s words have so often been my prayer of exhale after another weary day of trying to prove my worthiness with all of my “doings.”

I was not wired to run on my own strength.

I am a branch connected to a vine that will supply me with fruit.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. [She] who abides in Me, and I in her, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” –John 15:5

Now at home in Orlando, I find myself continually longing to be back at camp–and not just because it was so easy to worship my Creator God when I opened my cabin door each morning to the breathtaking view of Lake Pleasant–but because I don’t want to wander again and lose that close connection I felt with Him.

The truth is…I will.

I will wander onto my own self-seeking path everyday in a hundred tiny ways. And as I grow closer to Him, I will probably just become more and more aware of my wandering bent.

But the sweetest Truth is one my friend Shauna so lovingly reminded me of recently:

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” –Lamentations 3:22-23

No matter how far we wander, no matter how dark the night, God’s mercies are new every morning.

Therein lies our hope!

He is the faithful one. He is the one whose compassions never fail. He is not surprised by our frailty. Nor is He disappointed in our proneness to wander after other “loves” than Him (for me, it’s often the love of self, productivity, and achievement). He is infinitely patient with us because He sees the finish line and who we are in the process of becoming.

What next?

So, what am I doing next? Well, a lot less “doing” actually.

A life of dependence upon the vine of Jesus is an invitation to create that space to turn our ear to Him not just once a year at camp. Not just once a week on Sabbath.

Every. Single. Day.

To listen for the love song He is singing over us always simply because we are His. To let His voice silence the ones that ring loud, saying, “You are loved because of what you do.”

His still, small voice is True.

And so, I’m asking Him to help me tune in to hear Him back home in the much noisier Orlando.

Right now, that looks like not checking my phone in the morning before I’ve checked in with God. Not opening my planner until we have a chat, and I say,

“Here’s what I’m thinking about doing today. How does that sound? I’m open to what you have in store for me because it’s better than anything I could scheme.”

It means taking my end of the day discouragements to Him and not tuning them out with a screen.

It means singing on to Rob-Rob’s last stanza:

“Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for thy courts above.”

All we need to do is offer our hearts to Him, stay close to the vine, and He does the rest! He transforms our hearts into ones sustained by loving Him and His children first, and not in loving our “doings.” He makes it all possible. What a gift.

“I’ll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. I’ll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands.” –Ezekiel 36:26-27, The Message

I share all of this in hope that there might be even one person out there who shares my struggles.

And if that person is you, know that you have a soul sister out here who loves her phone and the approval of others a little too much and wants to love her God a whole lot more and doesn’t have a map, but has open hands and a hungry heart and a prayer for the Spirit to guide us both in our quest.

I have a hunch it won’t be the the quest we’re imagining. But I believe it’ll be the most worthwhile quest we could ever take. The one for which we’ve been made.

My Prayer

I invite you to pray with me and make these words your own:

God, I give you my wandering heart. Take it! Claim it as yours and for your kingdom. Keep me connected to your vine. May I not go anywhere you aren’t leading. May I not aspire to do anything that you’re not the center of. Help me to remember who I already am: your beloved. And that’s everything. Amen.

Free 7 Week Devotional Series

I also wrote a 7 week devotional called “Enough Already” that speaks to this same notion of finding our worth in who we are and not what we do. It was written for Lent 2020 and was updated in 2021, but can truly be enjoyed any 7 week season of the year. Click HERE to sign up for those emails that arrive in written form and audio form once a week!

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