Vocation and Spiritual Formation (part 4): Listening to the Call of Our Vocation

In the last post Parker Palmer stated our vocation is "a gift to be received" and "accepted." But, before we can receive, discover, and accept our vocation there must be discernment and listening to what our “life” is trying to tell us. Without the willingness to listen to the "voice" of our true self speaking forth who we are, we run after other things, pulling us away from our true vocation.

 "Vocation does not mean a goal I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live - but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life." ~ Parker Palmer

I long to be living my own life, not the life others project and put forth for me to live. The life only meant to be living in me. Our culture likes cookie cutter identities. We are threatened by those who cry from the depths, “You can’t box me in. You can’t form me in your own image.” I am pursuing to live the “good life,” to be living by the standards by which I cannot but live if “I’m living my own life.” Who’s life are you living? Is it the life God intended you to live or some other fabrication and false self built on a foundation of shifting sand?