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My family recently welcomed the birth of a new baby, my nephew. There's been great rejoicing as we "ooh" and "aah" over his twinkling eyes and button-size nose, wondering which parent he most looks like and dream- ing of what he'll become when he grows up. What will he be interested in? What gifts and abilities will God grow in him? What will be his calling in life? These questions often follow us from childhood into adulthood. Who are we? What purposes has God set before us? Teenagers grapple with these questions as they consider their steps after high school. Midlife crises are birthed from reevaluating these questions of purpose and meaning. Even retirees ask these ques- tions anew as they discern God's will for their lives in a new season. Author Jeffrey Leininger begins his book Callings for Life with these wise words: "Our calling in life is better understood in the plural rather than the singular." 9 Rather than fixating on a singular purpose for life, we become all who God created us to be when we recog- nize that any way we "love and serve our neighbor by God's grace and with Christ's forgiveness is to do His will and accomplish His purposes." 10 We don't need to wait for God to profoundly announce a specific calling over us, or assume we're too young or too old to be used by God. Rather, we need to recognize that to be in our calling is to recognize all the oppor- tunities we have right in front of us to love and serve those around us. Who's around us? Our family! Before we explore the world "out there," we live in our family units right here. We have endless opportunities to carry out the calling of loving and serving others right in our own living room with the people we live with. There are dishes to wash and clothes to fold, hugs to offer and cries to share, forgiveness to give and grace to receive. There are lessons to teach and lessons to learn, responsibili- ties to embrace, and Christlike servanthood to model. We'll never run out of work to accomplish through our familial callings. Leininger quotes Luther, who said, "Yea if you had five heads and ten hands, even then you would be too weak for your task." 11 This is not just true for grown-ups. My nephew doesn't have a calling just in the future. Rather, each family member has a calling in the pres- ent. Leininger writes, "Because of the work of Christ Jesus—and solely because of His work—the people in your life do not simply have potential value. They have full value right now, as forgiven and redeemed chil- dren of God. Their present matters, and their presence matters." 12 To embrace vocations within a family is to first and foremost celebrate family members for who they are— children of God—above and beyond what they can do or contribute. In doing so, we can learn to love our family as Jesus loves us: unconditionally and unde- servedly. People's identity "does not stem from how many souls they might save . . . or what great job they'll land . . . or whom they might marry, where they might live, and how much money they'll make." 13 While we can look forward to seeing the path God has for each person, the reason we value family is purely out of love—love we first received from Christ when we were unworthy of it and love we now freely give in response to Christ. We seek to love and serve our family because that's what it means to follow Jesus. That's what it means to have a noble calling. w 9 Jeffrey Leininger, Callings for Life: God's Plan, Your Purpose (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2020), 1. 10 Leininger, 6; emphasis in original. 11 Leininger, 7–8, quoted from The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther, ed. John Lenker, vol. 10 (Minneapolis: Lutherans in All Lands Co., 1905), 242, and reprinted in The Sermons of Martin Luther, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 242. 12 Leininger, 46; emphasis in original. 13 Leininger, 46. God calls you to more than one "big thing" in your life. Rather, He calls you to multiple vocations of all varieties, big and small! Broaden your view of the vocations God has called you to in Callings for Life. Find this title and others listed in this magazine at cph.org/llresources. CALLINGS FOR LIFE Lutheran Life 25

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